⁷ Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory,^(A) why am I still condemned as a sinner?”^(B)

⁴ Not at all! Let God be true,^(A) and every human being a liar.^(B) As it is written:

¹⁹ One of you will say to me:^(A) “Then why does God still blame us?^(B) For who is able to resist his will?”^{(C) 20} But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?^(D) “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,^(E) ‘Why did you make me like this?’”^[a](F)

²⁷ The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus,^(A) yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets^(B) that are read every Sabbath. ²⁸ Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed.^{(C) 29} When they had carried out all that was written about him,^(D) they took him down from the cross^(E) and laid him in a tomb.^(F)

Peter Disowns Jesus^(A)

⁶⁹ Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said.

⁷⁰ But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

⁷¹ Then he went out to the gateway, where another servant girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

⁷² He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!”

⁷³ After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away.”

⁷⁴ Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”

Immediately a rooster crowed. ⁷⁵ Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”^(B) And he went outside and wept bitterly.

³⁴ “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”^(A)

¹⁰ Elisha answered, “Go and say to him, ‘You will certainly recover.’^(A) Nevertheless,^[a] the Lord has revealed to me that he will in fact die.” ¹¹ He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael was embarrassed.^(B) Then the man of God began to weep.^(C)

¹² “Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael.

“Because I know the harm^(D) you will do to the Israelites,” he answered. “You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash^(E) their little children^(F) to the ground, and rip open^(G) their pregnant women.”

¹³ Hazael said, “How could your servant, a mere dog,^(H) accomplish such a feat?”

“The Lord has shown me that you will become king^(I) of Aram,” answered Elisha.

¹⁴ Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, “What did Elisha say to you?” Hazael replied, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” ¹⁵ But the next day he took a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the king’s face, so that he died.^(J) Then Hazael succeeded him as king.

²⁶ When the prophet who had brought him back from his journey heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who defied^(A) the word of the Lord. The Lord has given him over to the lion, which has mauled him and killed him, as the word of the Lord had warned him.”

²⁷ The prophet said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me,” and they did so. ²⁸ Then he went out and found the body lying on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. ²⁹ So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. ³⁰ Then he laid the body in his own tomb,^(B) and they mourned over him and said, “Alas, my brother!”^(C)

³¹ After burying him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones^(D) beside his bones. ³² For the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places^(E) in the towns of Samaria^(F) will certainly come true.”^(G)