I knew that you would prove to be stubborn, as rigid as iron and unyielding as bronze.

Surely the LORD looks for faithfulness. He struck you, but you paid no attention; he crushed you, but you refused to learn. You were stubborn and would not turn from your sins.

The furnace burns fiercely, but the waste metals do not melt and run off. It is useless to go on refining my people, because those who are evil are not taken away.

They will be called worthless dross, because I, the LORD, have rejected them."

"But my people stubbornly refused to listen. They closed their minds

and made their hearts as hard as rock. Because they would not listen to the teaching which I sent through the prophets who lived long ago, I became very angry.

You are doomed, you that twist justice and cheat people out of their rights!

You have oppressed the poor and robbed them of their grain. And so you will not live in the fine stone houses you build or drink wine from the beautiful vineyards you plant.

I know how terrible your sins are and how many crimes you have committed. You persecute good people, take bribes, and prevent the poor from getting justice in the courts.

"Well, are you the king or aren't you?" Jezebel replied. "Get out of bed, cheer up, and eat. I will get you Naboth's vineyard!"

The letters said: "Proclaim a day of fasting, call the people together, and give Naboth the place of honor.

The officials and leading citizens of Jezreel did what Jezebel had commanded.

The two scoundrels publicly accused him of cursing God and the king, and so he was taken outside the city and stoned to death.

You have nothing to do with corrupt judges, who make injustice legal,

who plot against good people and sentence the innocent to death.

We have rebelled against you, rejected you, and refused to follow you. We have oppressed others and turned away from you. Our thoughts are false; our words are lies.

Justice is driven away, and right cannot come near. Truth stumbles in the public square, and honesty finds no place there.

They utter empty words and make false promises and useless treaties. Justice has become injustice, growing like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.

But instead you planted evil and reaped its harvest. You have eaten the fruit produced by your lies. "Because you trusted in your chariots and in the large number of your soldiers,

They are all experts at doing evil. Officials and judges ask for bribes. The influential people tell them what they want, and so they scheme together.

Why do you make me see such trouble? How can you stand to look on such wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are all around me, and there is fighting and quarreling everywhere.

The law is weak and useless, and justice is never done. Evil people get the better of the righteous, and so justice is perverted.

"How stubborn you are!" Stephen went on to say. "How heathen your hearts, how deaf you are to God's message! You are just like your ancestors: you too have always resisted the Holy Spirit!

Was there any prophet that your ancestors did not persecute? They killed God's messengers, who long ago announced the coming of his righteous Servant. And now you have betrayed and murdered him.