There is a secret truth, my friends, which I want you to know, for it will keep you from thinking how wise you are. It is that the stubbornness of the people of Israel is not permanent, but will last only until the complete number of Gentiles comes to God.

When the king saw that the frogs were dead, he became stubborn again and, just as the LORD had said, the king would not listen to Moses and Aaron.

I will make the Egyptians so stubborn that they will go in after them, and I will gain honor by my victory over the king, his army, his chariots, and his drivers.

"But King Sihon would not let us pass through his country. The LORD your God had made him stubborn and rebellious, so that we could defeat him and take his territory, which we still occupy.

The LORD had made them determined to fight the Israelites, so that they would be condemned to total destruction and all be killed without mercy. This was what the LORD had commanded Moses.

Why should you be stubborn, as the king of Egypt and the Egyptians were? Don't forget how God made fools of them until they let the Israelites leave Egypt.

Do not be stubborn as they were, but obey the LORD. Come to the Temple in Jerusalem, which the LORD your God has made holy forever, and worship him so that he will no longer be angry with you.

Zedekiah rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had forced him to swear in God's name that he would be loyal. He stubbornly refused to repent and return to the LORD, the God of Israel.

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

If you get more stubborn every time you are corrected, one day you will be crushed and never recover.

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

But none of the people of Israel will be willing to listen; they will not even listen to me. All of them are stubborn and defiant.

But because he became proud, stubborn, and cruel, he was removed from his royal throne and lost his place of honor.

"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.

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."

This is shown by the fact that God sets another day, which is called "Today." Many years later he spoke of it through David in the scripture already quoted: "If you hear God's voice today, do not be stubborn."

And the same is true of what God has done. He wanted to show his anger and to make his power known. But he was very patient in enduring those who were the objects of his anger, who were doomed to destruction.

"The LORD remembers what their enemies have done; he waits for the right time to punish them.

The LORD says, "These people fill their mansions with things taken by crime and violence. They don't even know how to be honest.

Your gold and silver are covered with rust, and this rust will be a witness against you and will eat up your flesh like fire. You have piled up riches in these last days.

On the day God is angry and punishes, it is the wicked who are always spared.

Riches will do you no good on the day you face death, but honesty can save your life.

And so the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials and how to keep the wicked under punishment for the Day of Judgment,

But the heavens and the earth that now exist are being preserved by the same command of God, in order to be destroyed by fire. They are being kept for the day when godless people will be judged and destroyed.

The terrible day of their anger is here, and who can stand up against it?"

We know that God is right when he judges the people who do such things as these.

But you, my friend, do those very things for which you pass judgment on others! Do you think you will escape God's judgment?

God's anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known.

God is going to judge everything we do, whether good or bad, even things done in secret.