Say to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose"

Romans Chapter 9 verses 9-20

For this was how the promise was stated:

"At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."

Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written:

"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

What then shall we say?

Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,

"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

One of you will say to me:

"Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?

"Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "
Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?


From the book of Obidiah:

"The house of Jacob will be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame; the house of Esau will be stubble, and they will set it on fire and consume it.

Deliverers will go up on Mount Zion to govern the mountains of Esau.