You bore with them for many years and admonished them by Your Ruach through the hand of Your prophets. Yet they would not listen, so You handed them over to the peoples of the lands.
“Nonetheless they became contentious and rebelled against You. They cast Your Torah behind their back. They killed Your prophets who warned them to return to You; they committed appalling blasphemies.
“You warned them in order to turn them back to Your Torah, but they became insolent and disobeyed Your mitzvot. They sinned against Your ordinances—those by which if a man does them he will live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck, and would not listen.
Who gave Jacob to the looter, Israel to the plunderers? Was it not Adonai? Have we not sinned against Him? In His ways they were unwilling to walk and His Torah they did not obey.
Then Adonai could no longer endure it, because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations that you committed! So your land has become a wasteland, a desolation and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day.
Adonai has done what He planned; He has fulfilled His word that He commanded from days of old. He has overthrown you without pity, He enabled the enemy to gloat over you. He has exalted the horn of your foes.
We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our leaders and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
Indeed, they made their hearts as hard as flint preventing them from hearing the Torah or the words that Adonai-Tzva’ot sent by His Ruach through the former prophets. Consequently, great wrath came from Adonai-Tzva’ot.
Two men, however, had remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad and the name of the other was Medad. The Ruach rested on them. They were among those listed, but they had not gone out to the Tent. So they prophesied in the camp.
So when they disagreed among themselves, they began leaving after Paul had said one last statement: “The Ruach ha-Kodesh rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers,
They were trying to find out the time and circumstances the Ruach of Messiah within them was indicating, when predicting the sufferings in store for Messiah and the glories to follow.
The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some consider slowness. Rather, He is being patient toward you—not wanting anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance.