Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. The commanded response to persecution is not endurance but joy — rejoice and be glad. The joy is grounded in two realities: the reward that is great in heaven and the identification with the prophets. The prophets who were persecuted before the disciples were persecuted for the same reason — speaking the word of God in a world that does not want to hear it. The prophetic tradition is both the disciples' context (we are in the line of the prophets) and their comfort (the prophets were persecuted too, and God vindicated them). Hebrews 11:36–38 describes the suffering of the prophets as the context for the faith they maintained; the disciples are called to the same faith in the same God who vindicates.

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