Isaiah 6:9-12  . . . “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand; and you see indeed, but don’t perceive.’ Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.” Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land becomes utterly waste, and the Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many within the land.

Jeremiah 1:17-19  . . . say to them all that I command you. Don’t be dismayed at them, lest I dismay you before them. For, behold, I have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you

Ezekiel 2:3-7  . . . Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me even to this very day. The children are impudent and stiff-hearted: I am sending you to them; and you shall tell them, Thus says the Lord. They, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house) yet shall know that there has been a prophet among them. You, son of man, don’t be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you do dwell among scorpions: don’t be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house. You shall speak my words to them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear; for they are most rebellious.

Ezekiel 3:5-9 For you are not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel . . . Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not listen to you; for they will not listen to me: for all the house of Israel are obstinate and hard-hearted. Behold, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made your forehead: don’t be afraid of them, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.

The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, says 2 Chronicles 36:15-16.

Just before he was stoned to death, Stephen told of how Joseph and Moses were both spurned by God’s people and concluded, “Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute?” (Acts 7:52). Jesus even took this into the future, saying, “I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town” (Matthew 23:34).