Punishment Is Inevitable

15 Then the Lord said to me: Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go!^(A)

⁵ So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

How great a forest is set ablaze by a such a small fire!^{(A) 6} And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of life, and is itself set on fire by hell.^[a](B)

¹⁵ The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.^{(A) 17} Elijah was a human like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.^{(B) 18} Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded its harvest.^(C)

¹⁵ who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets^[a] and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone^{(A) 16} by hindering us from speaking to the gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins, but wrath^[b] has overtaken them at last.^[c](B)

⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.^{(A) 48} If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place^[a] and our nation.” ⁴⁹ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!^{(B) 50} You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”^(C)

⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”^{(A) 41} Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.^(B)