Christmas Plan

³⁷Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him,

³⁸so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

³⁹Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,

⁴⁰“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”

⁴¹Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.

⁴²Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue;

⁴³for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

¹⁰“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.