But what if some of them were not faithful? Does this mean that God will not be faithful?

I ask, then: Did God reject his own people? Certainly not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

God has not rejected his people, whom he chose from the beginning. You know what the scripture says in the passage where Elijah pleads with God against Israel:

God is not like people, who lie; He is not a human who changes his mind. Whatever he promises, he does; He speaks, and it is done.

So also will be the word that I speak--- it will not fail to do what I plan for it; it will do everything I send it to do.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

We know that what the scripture says is true forever; and God called those people gods, the people to whom his message was given.

If we are not faithful, he remains faithful, because he cannot be false to himself."

To those who were to receive what he promised, God wanted to make it very clear that he would never change his purpose; so he added his vow to the promise.

There are these two things, then, that cannot change and about which God cannot lie. So we who have found safety with him are greatly encouraged to hold firmly to the hope placed before us.

After all, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised? It is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing.

Rather, the real Jew is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God's Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives praise from God, not from human beings.

He is also the father of those who are circumcised, that is, of those who, in addition to being circumcised, also live the same life of faith that our father Abraham lived before he was circumcised.

For if what God promises is to be given to those who obey the Law, then faith means nothing and God's promise is worthless.

And so the promise was based on faith, in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God's free gift to all of Abraham's descendants---not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all;

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, he said about him, "Here is a real Israelite; there is nothing false in him!"

As for those who follow this rule in their lives, may peace and mercy be with them---with them and with all of God's people!