were faithful and obedient to God’s law and threatened his punishment against the unfaithful and disobedient (cf. Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28). Though the first prophecy in the Bible—“he [the offspring of the woman] will crush your [the Serpent’s] head and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15)—hints at the persecution of the righteous, the Book of the Law by Moses, the human founder of Israel, did not express that inevitability. In the old dispensation, many saints (e.g., Abel, Job, Moses, Jeremiah)