and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this stumbling they were also appointed.
“Have you not heard? Long ago I did it; From days of old I formed it. Now I have brought it to pass, That you should devastate fortified cities into ruinous heaps.
“Then He shall become a sanctuary; But to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, And a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed—
And what if God, wanting to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction,
For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes upon Him will not be put to shame.”
This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, This has become the chief corner stone,”
For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.