“ But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff- necked, and they did not obey your commands.

“但我们的列祖行事狂傲，硬着颈项不听从你的诫命；

“‘但我们的祖先行事狂傲，硬着颈项不听从你的诫命。

“‘但我们的祖先行事狂傲，硬着颈项不听从你的诫命。

但我们的祖先行事狂傲，顽固不化，不肯听从你的诫命。

但是我们的列祖狂妄自大，硬着颈项，不听从你的命令。

「但我們的列祖行事狂傲，硬着頸項不聽從你的誡命；

「『但我們的祖先行事狂傲，硬着頸項不聽從你的誡命。

「『但我們的祖先行事狂傲，硬着頸項不聽從你的誡命。

但我們的祖先行事狂傲，頑固不化，不肯聽從你的誡命。

但是我們的列祖狂妄自大，硬著頸項，不聽從你的命令。

『但是他們、我們的祖宗、狂妄傲慢，硬着脖子，不聽你的誡命，

惟我列祖、驕矜強項、不聽爾命、

當時之民、即我列祖、妄自矜詡、強項不馴、不聽從爾命、

當時之民、即我列祖、狂妄強項、不聽主命、

“ But our people before us became proud and stubborn. They didn’t obey your commands.

“ But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments.

“ But our ancestors were proud and stubborn, and they paid no attention to your commands.

But our ancestors acted arrogantly; they became stiff-necked and did not listen to your commands.

“ But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly; They became stubborn and would not listen to Your commandments.

“ But they and our fathers acted proudly, Hardened their necks, And did not heed Your commandments.

But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their neck, and hearkened not to thy commandments,

But our ancestors acted arrogantly; they became stiff-necked and did not listen to Your commands.

But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments,

“ But they– our ancestors– behaved presumptuously; they rebelled and did not obey your commandments.

“ But they and our fathers behaved proudly, hardened their neck, didn’t listen to your commandments,

For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you have been rebellious against the Lord while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die!

You sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself, which remains to this day.

“ You warned them in order to turn them back to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, of which you said,‘ The person who obeys them will live by them.’ Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff- necked and refused to listen.

“ But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.“ If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways,how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!

“ You stiff- necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!

“ This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says:‘ Listen! I am going to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff- necked and would not listen to my words.’”

They would not be like their ancestors— a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle;they did not keep God’s covenant and refused to live by his law.They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them.He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.He divided the sea and led them through; he made the water stand up like a wall.He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night.He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them water as abundant as the seas;he brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers.But they continued to sin against him, rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved.They spoke against God; they said,“ Can God really spread a table in the wilderness?True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out, streams flowed abundantly, but can he also give us bread? Can he supply meat for his people?”When the Lord heard them, he was furious; his fire broke out against Jacob, and his wrath rose against Israel,for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance.Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens;he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.Human beings ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.He let loose the east wind from the heavens and by his power made the south wind blow.He rained meat down on them like dust, birds like sand on the seashore.He made them come down inside their camp, all around their tents.They ate till they were gorged— he had given them what they craved.But before they turned from what they craved, even while the food was still in their mouths,God’s anger rose against them; he put to death the sturdiest among them, cutting down the young men of Israel.In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.So he ended their days in futility and their years in terror.Whenever God slew them, they would seek him; they eagerly turned to him again.They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues;their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant.Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the wasteland!Again and again they put God to the test; they vexed the Holy One of Israel.They did not remember his power— the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,the day he displayed his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the region of Zoan.He turned their river into blood; they could not drink from their streams.He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.He gave their crops to the grasshopper, their produce to the locust.He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamore-figs with sleet.He gave over their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.He unleashed against them his hot anger, his wrath, indignation and hostility— a band of destroying angels.He prepared a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death but gave them over to the plague.He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.But he brought his people out like a flock; he led them like sheep through the wilderness.He guided them safely, so they were unafraid; but the sea engulfed their enemies.And so he brought them to the border of his holy land, to the hill country his right hand had taken.He drove out nations before them and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance; he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes.Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow.They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.When God heard them, he was furious; he rejected Israel completely.He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among humans.He sent the ark of his might into captivity, his splendor into the hands of the enemy.He gave his people over to the sword; he was furious with his inheritance.Fire consumed their young men, and their young women had no wedding songs;their priests were put to the sword, and their widows could not weep.Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine.He beat back his enemies; he put them to everlasting shame.Then he rejected the tents of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved.He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that he established forever.He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens;from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel his inheritance.And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.

Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek. They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior.

For I knew how stubborn you were; your neck muscles were iron, your forehead was bronze.

“ Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did.For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said,‘ They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’

As has just been said:“ Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.”

We have sinned, even as our ancestors did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly.

He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him take an oath in God’s name. He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart and would not turn to the Lord, the God of Israel.

“ You of this generation, consider the word of the Lord:“ Have I been a desert to Israel or a land of great darkness? Why do my people say,‘ We are free to roam; we will come to you no more’?

Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin.

But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the Lord their God.

“ I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses,“ and they are a stiff-necked people.

Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called“ Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.You grumbled in your tents and said,“ The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us.Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt in fear. They say,‘ The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.’”Then I said to you,“ Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them.The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes,and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God,who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.

Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, he said,“ Go up and take possession of the land I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not trust him or obey him.You have been rebellious against the Lord ever since I have known you.

If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well- being like the waves of the sea.

Whoever remains stiff- necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed— without remedy.

He said,“ If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

Hear me, my people, and I will warn you— if you would only listen to me, Israel!

And the Lord said to me,“ I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed!

Do not be stiff-necked, as your ancestors were; submit to the Lord. Come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you.

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.