Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ‘The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good,’ for he thought: There will be peace and security during my lifetime.
But they kept ridiculing God’s messengers, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the Lord’s wrath was so stirred up against his people that there was no remedy.
‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
Then the officials and all the people told the priests and prophets, ‘This man doesn’t deserve the death sentence, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God! ’
If they had really stood in my council, they would have enabled my people to hear my words and would have turned them from their evil ways and their evil deeds.
Don’t criticise one another, brothers and sisters. Anyone who defames or judges a fellow believer defames and judges the law. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.