Except affliction on affliction, hope upon hope; yet a little, [and] yet a little,

And the burden of the Lord you shall mention no more; for his own word shall be a man's burden.

Therefore thus says the Lord our God: Because you have spoken this word, The burden of the Lord, and I sent to you, saying, you shall not say, The burden of the Lord;

Therefore have I mown down your prophets; I have slain them with the word of My mouth; and My judgment shall go forth as the light.

I will write down a multitude [of commands] for him; but his statutes are accounted strange things, [even] the beloved altars.

You shall hear indeed, but you shall not understand; and you shall see indeed, but you shall not perceive.

For the heart of this people has become dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

And if you shall trust in Him, He shall be to you for a sanctuary; and you shall not come against [Him] as against a stumbling stone, neither as against the falling of a rock; but the houses of Jacob are in a snare, and those who dwell in Jerusalem are in a pit.

Therefore many among them shall be weak and fall, and be crushed; and they shall draw near, and men shall be taken securely.

Let their table before them be for a snare, and for a recompense, and for a stumbling block.

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says: 'Hearing you shall hear and by no means understand, and seeing you shall see and by no means perceive.

And he who falls on this Stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder."

And David says: "Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them.

To some we are the fragrance of death [leading] to death, but to others the fragrance of life [leading] to life. And who is sufficient for these things?

Therefore, to you who believe, [He] is precious; but to those who are disobedient, "The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone,"

and "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense." They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.

as also in all his letters, speaking in them about these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the unlearned and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.