but the Pharisees and scholars of the law, who were not baptized by him, rejected the plan of God for themselves.)
Because you disdained all my counsel, and my reproof you ignored—
How can you say, “We are wise, we have the law of the Lord”? See, that has been changed into falsehood by the lying pen of the scribes!
and one of them [a scholar of the law] tested him by asking,
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!
But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ then all the people will stone us, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.”
“Then to what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like?
for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.
But regarding Israel he says, “All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contentious people.”
Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,