19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"

20But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?"

21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--

24even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

25As indeed he says in Hosea, "Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,' and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'"

26"And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"

27And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,

28for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay."

29And as Isaiah predicted, "If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah."