This chapter contends that in Romans 2, Paul argues that the prophetic promises to make Israel obedient via the “Torah written on the heart” and the “circumcision of the heart” and a “new heart and new spirit” are presently being fulfilled. But in a startling twist, he includes uncircumcised gentiles among those receiving these things promised to Israel, building on his case in Rom 1 that Israel’s historic idolatry and immorality opened the door for gentiles to be included due to God’s impartiality.

This chapter argues that Paul’s gospel was based on the conviction that God’s promises through the prophets—specifically the promise of a renewed covenant with Israel—were being fulfilled through Jesus’ death, resurrection, and the gift of the spirit. Working primarily from 2 Corinthians 3 and the central chapters of Romans, this chapter puts Paul in conversation with Jubilees, a variety of texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS, CD, 1QPHa, etc.), Philo of Alexandria, and more. The chapter demonstrates that all of these texts bear witness to a view of Israel as having fallen under the Torah’s curses for covenantal disobedience and awaiting a restoration that includes an ethical transformation through divine intervention.

Promises of Israel's restoration appear throughout the Latter Prophets. This chapter argues that modern interpreters have overlooked the surprising amount of attention specifically paid to the fate of the northern tribes of Israel throughout the Latter Prophets, even in books by prophets who lived long after the destruction of the northern kingdom.Whereas many have suggested a narrowing in the scope of Israel such that prophecies such as those of Second Isaiah refer to the restoration of Judah, this chapter argues that the prophets consistently take a more expansive view of Israel and that Second Temple period readers would have—and in fact did—read these prophecies as referring not only to those from Judah exiled by the Babylonians but also to the northern tribes scattered by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE. The prophets' promises therefore remained unfulfilled so long as the northern tribes had not returned.

This chapter looks at the use of "Israel" terminology and its relationship to eschatology in the Dead Sea Scrolls, focusing on the sectarian scrolls. The chapter argues that the Yaḥad understand the exile as ongoing—even those in the land remain in exile, while the returns of Ezra-Nehemiah and the Second Temple are inadequate or worse. They understand Israel's restoration as contingent on a return to virtue and obedience—which they believe has begun with their own group's divinely initiated return to proper halakhic practices. The Yaḥad therefore present themselves as the vanguard of the restoration of all Israel, which includes the return of the northern tribes remaining in exile and the elimination of the disobedient among their Jewish contemporaries. They represent their separation from their contemporaries as having visibly rejoined the rest of Israel in exile, where their obedience serves as a atonement for the rest of Israel—atonement the Second Temple could not manage—thereby initiating the restoration of all Israel.

Through the coming, death, and resurrection/exaltation of the Messiah Jesus, God has graciously determined to rescue humanity from the powers of Sin and Death, thereby creating a forgiven, liberated, and reconciled people: the community of the new creation and new covenant. By faith and baptism, and through the work of God’s empowering, indwelling Spirit, people may participate in this saving, transformative event and thus live “in Christ,” experiencing the fullness of life with God and others for which they were created, in anticipation of the restoration of the entire creation.