They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their ancestors and the warnings that he had given them. They went after false idols and became false; they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did.
Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow’s cause does not come before them.
And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
But I the Lord will speak the word that I speak, and it will be fulfilled. It will no longer be delayed, but in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak the word and fulfill it, says the Lord God.”
Say now to the rebellious house: Do you not know what these things mean? Tell them: The king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, took its king and its officials, and brought them back with him to Babylon.
He said to me, “Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day.
Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.”
He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but to others I speak in parables, so that ‘looking they may not perceive and hearing they may not understand.’
“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they might not look with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.”
But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside.
For I know well how rebellious and stubborn you are. If you already have been so rebellious toward the Lord while I am still alive among you, how much more after my death!
Remember; do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.