Romans 9:13 : Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Some think this also was said before Jacob and Esau were born, but not so. No such language is found in what Jehovah said to Rebekah. The language quoted was written several hundred years after the days of Jacob and Esau. That the language refers to the two peoples instead of to Jacob and Esau as individuals is clearly seen by reading the connection from which the quotation was taken: "The burden of the word of Jehovah to Israel by Malachi. -I have loved you, saith Jehovah. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith Jehovah: yet I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, we are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places; thus saith Jehovah of hosts, They shall build but I will throw down and men shall call them The border of wickedness, and The people against whom Jehovah hath indignation for ever" (Malachi 1:1-4).