God is with us:
do what is bad, peoples,
and shatter.
Give ear,
all you distant parts of the earth;
belt yourselves and shatter,
Belt yourselves and shatter;
take counsel, but it will be contravened.
Speak a word, but it won’t arise,
because God is with us.
Because Yahweh said this to me as he took strong hold of my hand
so that he might discipline me out of walking in the way of this people:
You all shall not say ‘conspiracy’ about everything
that this people says ‘conspiracy’ about.
What they’re in awe of,
you shall not be in awe of, and not dread.
Yahweh of Armies – regard him as sacred;
he’s to be the object of your awe, he your dread.
He’s to be a sacred place,
but a stone to trip on,
a crag to collapse on,
For the two households of Yisra’el
– a trap and a snare for Yerushalaim’s inhabitants.
Many people will collapse on them,
they’ll fall and break, be snared and caught.
Bind up the testimony,
seal the instruction among my disciples.
I shall wait for Yahweh, who’s hiding his face from Ya’aqob’s household,
and I shall hope for him.
Here am I
and the children Yahweh has given me as signs and portents in Yisra’el
from Yahweh of Armies who dwells on Mount Tsiyyon.
So when they say to you all,
‘Enquire of the ghosts and the spirits who chirp and whisper.
(A people is to enquire of its gods, isn’t it),
of the dead on behalf of the living, for instruction and testimony’:
if they do not speak in accordance with this word, for which there will be no dawn . . .
It will pass through it wretched and hungry.
When it is hungry it will rage
and slight its king and its gods.
It will turn its face upwards and look to the earth,
but there, pressure and darkness,
oppressive gloom, driven murkiness,
because there will be no dawn for the one that experiences oppression.
Goldingay, John; The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
O Lord Jesus Christ,
stay beside me to defend me,
within me to guide me,
before me to lead me,
and above me to bless me,
that with you and in you,
I may live, and move and have my being,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
(unknown)