Paul prays for the Israelites
1Friends, I hope and pray that God will save the Israelites. 2I am telling you this and it is sure: They want to serve God, but they do not know how to do it. 3They do not know that God makes people righteous because they believe in Christ. They do not want God to make them righteous the way that God wants to. They want God to make them righteous because of the good things they do. 4Christ came and now God makes people righteous, but He does not do it because people do what the laws say. No, God makes them righteous because they believe. 5Moses wrote about people who do what God's laws say and want God to make them righteous because of what they have done. Moses said:
‘Anyone who does what the laws say
will live because he does what the laws say.’
6But we read that people must believe that God will make them righteous. It is written:
‘Do not ask yourself:
“Who will go up to heaven?” ’
That means we must not try to go up to heaven to bring Christ down to earth. 7It is also written:
‘Do not ask yourself:
“Who will go down to the underworld,
to the bottom of the earth?” ’
That means we must not try to go to the people who have died to bring Christ back from there. 8No, it is written:
‘The message of God is near you.
It is in your mouth and in your heart.’
That message is the message that we must believe. This is the message that we preach to you. 9If you say with your mouth or hands that you believe Jesus is Lord, and if you believe in your heart that God raised Him and made Him live again, then God will save you. 10Because we believe in our hearts, that is why God makes us righteous. And we say with our mouths or hands that we believe, and that is why God saves us. 11It is written in the Old_Testament:
‘The people who believe in Him
will never be disappointed.
He will not leave them alone.’
12Yes, God makes everyone righteous who believes, no_matter who they are, Jews or Gentiles. He is Lord of all and He is very good to everyone who asks Him to save them. 13It is written in the Old_Testament:
‘The Lord saves all those people who pray to Him
and who ask Him to save them.’
14But people can ask the Lord to save them only if they believe in Him. And they can believe in God only if they have heard or know about Him. And they can hear or know about the Lord only if someone preaches to them. 15And people can go and preach only if someone else sends them to preach. It is like the words that are written in the Old_Testament:
‘It is wonderful and beautiful when someone comes
to tell the Good_News about God.’
16But not all the Israelites believed it. That is why the prophet Isaiah asked:
‘Lord, who believed our message?’
17People can believe only if they hear or know about the message, and the message that they must hear or know about is the message of Christ. 18I ask: Did the Israelites hear this message? Did someone tell them about it? Yes, they heard it, that is sure. It is written in the Old_Testament:
‘The message came to everyone on earth.
The things they say
went to all the people of the world.’
19I ask: Did the people of Israel understand the message? Yes, they did understand it, because Moses told us long ago that God said:
‘I will make you jealous of people
who are not_really a nation.
I will make you angry
with people who understand nothing.’
20And later Isaiah was brave when he told us that God said:
‘I made people come to Me
who were not looking for Me.
I appeared to people
who did not ask where I was.’
21But God said to the Israelites:
‘I have put my hands out to them
every day, but they are
disobedient and stubborn.’
