If only they would always feel this way! If only they would always honor me and obey all my commands, so that everything would go well with them and their descendants forever.

They fail to see why they were defeated; they cannot understand what happened.

How I wish my people would listen to me; how I wish they would obey me!

"If only you had listened to my commands! Then blessings would have flowed for you like a stream that never goes dry. Victory would have come to you like the waves that roll on the shore.

Give up all the evil you have been doing, and get yourselves new minds and hearts. Why do you Israelites want to die?

I do not want anyone to die," says the Sovereign LORD. "Turn away from your sins and live."

Tell them that as surely as I, the Sovereign LORD, am the living God, I do not enjoy seeing sinners die. I would rather see them stop sinning and live. Israel, stop the evil you are doing. Why do you want to die?

They will completely destroy you and the people within your walls; not a single stone will they leave in its place, because you did not recognize the time when God came to save you!"

So all your loyal people should pray to you in times of need; when a great flood of trouble comes rushing in, it will not reach them.

He is our God; we are the people he cares for, the flock for which he provides. Listen today to what he says:

"Don't be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah, as they were that day in the desert at Massah.

Turn to the LORD and pray to him, now that he is near.

Jesus answered, "The light will be among you a little longer. Continue on your way while you have the light, so that the darkness will not come upon you; for the one who walks in the dark does not know where he is going.

Believe in the light, then, while you have it, so that you will be the people of the light." After Jesus said this, he went off and hid himself from them.

In our work together with God, then, we beg you who have received God's grace not to let it be wasted.

Hear what God says: "When the time came for me to show you favor, I heard you; when the day arrived for me to save you, I helped you." Listen! This is the hour to receive God's favor; today is the day to be saved!

to tell his people that they will be saved by having their sins forgiven.

and to shine from heaven on all those who live in the dark shadow of death, to guide our steps into the path of peace."

but the angel said to them, "Don't be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people.

And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!"

Whenever you go into a house, first say, 'Peace be with this house.'

If someone who is peace-loving lives there, let your greeting of peace remain on that person; if not, take back your greeting of peace.

You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, proclaiming the Good News of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.

But Paul and Barnabas spoke out even more boldly: "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. But since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we will leave you and go to the Gentiles.

So then, as the Holy Spirit says, "If you hear God's voice today,

Instead, in order that none of you be deceived by sin and become stubborn, you must help one another every day, as long as the word "Today" in the scripture applies to us.

This is what the scripture says: "If you hear God's voice today, do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were when they rebelled against God."

For there is no longer any sacrifice that will take away sins if we purposely go on sinning after the truth has been made known to us.

Anyone who disobeys the Law of Moses is put to death without any mercy when judged guilty from the evidence of two or more witnesses.

You have come to Jesus, who arranged the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that promises much better things than does the blood of Abel.

His voice shook the earth at that time, but now he has promised, "I will once more shake not only the earth but heaven as well."

So he told me to go and give the people this message: "No matter how much you listen, you will not understand. No matter how much you look, you will not know what is happening."

Then he said to me, "Make the minds of these people dull, their ears deaf, and their eyes blind, so that they cannot see or hear or understand. If they did, they might turn to me and be healed."

The LORD has made you drowsy, ready to fall into a deep sleep. The prophets should be the eyes of the people, but God has blindfolded them.

If you give it to someone who can't read and ask him to read it to you, he will answer that he doesn't know how.

So I will startle them with one unexpected blow after another. Those who are wise will turn out to be fools, and all their cleverness will be useless."

Such people are too stupid to know what they are doing. They close their eyes and their minds to the truth.

So the prophecy of Isaiah applies to them: 'This people will listen and listen, but not understand; they will look and look, but not see,

because their minds are dull, and they have stopped up their ears and have closed their eyes. Otherwise, their eyes would see, their ears would hear, their minds would understand, and they would turn to me, says God, and I would heal them.'

so that what the prophet Isaiah had said might come true: "Lord, who believed the message we told? To whom did the Lord reveal his power?"

"God has blinded their eyes and closed their minds, so that their eyes would not see, and their minds would not understand, and they would not turn to me, says God, for me to heal them."

So they left, disagreeing among themselves, after Paul had said this one thing: "How well the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophet Isaiah to your ancestors!

because this people's minds are dull, and they have stopped up their ears and closed their eyes. Otherwise, their eyes would see, their ears would hear, their minds would understand, and they would turn to me, says God, and I would heal them.' "

What then? The people of Israel did not find what they were looking for. It was only the small group that God chose who found it; the rest grew deaf to God's call.

And David says, "May they be caught and trapped at their feasts; may they fall, may they be punished!

Their minds, indeed, were closed; and to this very day their minds are covered with the same veil as they read the books of the old covenant. The veil is removed only when a person is joined to Christ.

But it can be removed, as the scripture says about Moses: "His veil was removed when he turned to the Lord."

For if the gospel we preach is hidden, it is hidden only from those who are being lost.

They do not believe, because their minds have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world. He keeps them from seeing the light shining on them, the light that comes from the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

The Wicked One will come with the power of Satan and perform all kinds of false miracles and wonders,

And so God sends the power of error to work in them so that they believe what is false.