He is trying to teach us letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson."

So they must no longer use the words 'the LORD's burden,' because if any of them do, I will make my message a real burden to them. The people have perverted the words of their God, the living God, the LORD Almighty.

And if they disobey my command and use the words 'the LORD's burden,' then tell them that

That is why I have sent my prophets to you with my message of judgment and destruction. What I want from you is plain and clear:

I write down countless teachings for the people, but they reject them as strange and foreign.

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."

Because of my awesome holiness I am like a stone that people stumble over; I am like a trap that will catch the people of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel and the people of Jerusalem.

Many will stumble; they will fall and be crushed. They will be caught in a trap."

May their banquets cause their ruin; may their sacred feasts cause their downfall.

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,

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

For those who are being lost, it is a deadly stench that kills; but for those who are being saved, it is a fragrance that brings life. Who, then, is capable for such a task?

This stone is of great value for you that believe; but for those who do not believe: "The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all."

And another scripture says, "This is the stone that will make people stumble, the rock that will make them fall." They stumbled because they did not believe in the word; such was God's will for them.

This is what he says in all his letters when he writes on the subject. There are some difficult things in his letters which ignorant and unstable people explain falsely, as they do with other passages of the Scriptures. So they bring on their own destruction.