Again I ask, “Didn’t Israel understand?” First, Moses says, “I will use people who aren’t a nation to make you jealous. I’ll use a nation that has no understanding to make you angry.”
So let me ask something else: The Israelites didn’t trip and fall so badly that they could never get up, did they? Not at all! Rather, because Israel went wrong, the Gentiles are being saved, and that should make Israel jealous of them.
At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and controlled by all kinds of wrong desires and pleasures. We were hostile and envious. Other people hated us, and we hated them.
Here’s what I mean. One of you says, “I follow Paul.” Another says, “I follow Apollos.” Another says, “I follow Peter.” And still another says, “I follow Christ.”
Brothers and sisters, here’s what I’m telling you. Bodies made of flesh and blood can’t inherit the kingdom of God. Things that perish can’t share in what never perishes.
Don’t you have your own homes to eat and drink in? Or do you think so little of God’s church that you’re prepared to humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? Certainly not about this!
But I ask, “Didn’t the people of Israel hear?” Of course they did. It is written, “Their voice has gone out into the whole earth, their words from one end of the world to the other.”