Now, as for those enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and kill them in my presence!' "

and the LORD said, "Listen to everything the people say to you. You are not the one they have rejected; I am the one they have rejected as their king.

Why do the nations plan rebellion? Why do people make their useless plots?

"Let us free ourselves from their rule," they say; "let us throw off their control."

Israel's holy God and savior says to the one who is deeply despised, who is hated by the nations and is the servant of rulers: "Kings will see you released and will rise to show their respect; princes also will see it, and they will bow low to honor you." This will happen because the LORD has chosen his servant; the holy God of Israel keeps his promises.

I lost patience with three other shepherds, who hated me, and I got rid of them all in a single month.

He came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him.

"If the world hates you, just remember that it has hated me first.

Whoever hates me hates my Father also.

They would not have been guilty of sin if I had not done among them the things that no one else ever did; as it is, they have seen what I did, and they hate both me and my Father.

He was holy and good, but you rejected him, and instead you asked Pilate to do you the favor of turning loose a murderer.

You killed the one who leads to life, but God raised him from death---and we are witnesses to this.

For indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together in this city with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Jesus, your holy Servant, whom you made Messiah.

They gathered to do everything that you by your power and will had already decided would happen.

"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.