¹⁴ But his people hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We do not want him to be our king.’

⁷ “Do everything they say to you,” the Lord replied, “for they are rejecting me, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer.

⁵¹ “You stubborn people! You are heathen^[a] at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you! ⁵² Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered.

¹⁴ You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer. ¹⁵ You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact!

²³ Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. ²⁴ If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father.

The World’s Hatred

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.

²⁷ “In fact, this has happened here in this very city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed. ²⁸ But everything they did was determined beforehand according to your will.

¹¹ He came to his own people, and even they rejected him.

²⁷ And as for these enemies of mine who didn’t want me to be their king—bring them in and execute them right here in front of me.’”

⁸ I got rid of their three evil shepherds in a single month.

But I became impatient with these sheep, and they hated me, too.