persisted

Then they read the law to him, but he persisted in intruding, exclaiming that he ought to be allowed. He said, “Even if they were deprived of this honor, I shouldn’t be.”

And when he persisted in this statement, Pentephris said: Let the youth be brought.

And I beheld and lo! that vine opened its mouth and spoke and said to that cedar: Art you not that cedar which was left of the forest of wickedness, and by whose means wickedness persisted, and was wrought all those years, and goodness never.