He said, “Please ask King Solomon if he would give me Abishag the Shunammite as a wife, for he won’t refuse you.” ¹ 

Then his wife Jezebel came in and said to him, “Why do you have a bitter attitude and refuse to eat?”

Certainly you will not refuse one of my master’s minor officials and trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen. ¹ 

God, the one who has reigned as king from long ago, will hear and humiliate them. ¹  (Selah) They refuse to change, and do not fear God. ² 

May the godly strike me in love and correct me! May my head not refuse ¹  choice oil! ²  Indeed, my prayer is a witness against their evil deeds. ³ 

But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured ¹  by the sword.” Know for certain that the Lord has spoken. ² 

Certainly you will not refuse one of my master’s minor officials and trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen. ¹ 

Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem ¹  continually turn away from me in apostasy? They hold fast to their deception. ²  They refuse to turn back to me. ³ 

They do one act of violence after another, and one deceitful thing after another. ¹  They refuse to pay attention to me,” ²  says the Lord.

But if you refuse to surrender, the Lord has shown me a vision of what will happen. Here is what I saw:

Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ¹  But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ²  Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ³  They refuse to change their ways. ⁴ 

Then she went and sat down by herself across from him at quite a distance, about a bowshot ¹  away; for she thought, ²  “I refuse to watch the child die.” ³  So she sat across from him and wept uncontrollably. ⁴ 

“Listen, sir, ¹  you are a mighty prince ²  among us! You may bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb to prevent you ³  from burying your dead.”

So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh and told him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: ‘How long do you refuse ¹  to humble yourself before me? ²  Release my people so that they may serve me!

Peninnah ¹  would behave this way year after year. Whenever Hannah ²  went up to the Lord’s house, Peninnah ³  would upset her so that she would weep and refuse to eat.

That is why the rains have been withheld, and the spring rains have not come. Yet in spite of this you are obstinate as a prostitute. ¹  You refuse to be ashamed of what you have done.

While you were feeling secure I gave you warning. ¹  But you said, “I refuse to listen to you.” That is the way you have acted from your earliest history onward. ²  Indeed, you have never paid attention to me.

If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says ¹  ‘You most certainly must drink it! ² 

The Lord who rules over all ¹  says, “The people of Israel are oppressed. So too are the people of Judah. ²  All those who took them captive are holding them prisoners. They refuse to set them free.

But when I speak with you, I will loosen your tongue ¹  and you must say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says.’ Those who listen will listen, but the indifferent will refuse, ²  for they are a rebellious house.