Yahweh said to me,
‘Get yourself a big panel
and write on it with an ordinary stylus,
“For Plunder Hurries, Loot Rushes”.’
I invoked as trustworthy witnesses for me
Uriyyahu the priest
and Zekaryahu ben Yeberekyahu.

I had sex with the prophetess
and she got pregnant
and gave birth to a son.
Yahweh said to me, ‘Call him “Plunder Hurries, Loot Rushes”’,
because before the boy knows how to call “father” and “mother”,
someone will carry off Dammeseq’s wealth
and Shomron’s plunder before the king of Ashshur.’

Yahweh spoke to me yet further:
Since this people has rejected the water of Shiloah,
which goes gently
(and been glad about Retsin and ben Remalyahu),
Therefore:
there, the Lord is bringing up against them the water of the River,
substantial,
vast (the king of Ashshur and all his splendour).
It will rise up over all its canyons and go up over its banks.
It will sweep through Yehudah,
flood as it passes over,
reach as far as its neck.
Its wings spread out
will be the filling of the breadth of your country.

God is with us:

Goldingay, John;The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Steer the ship of my life, good Lord, to your quiet harbour,
where I can be safe from the storms of sin and conflict.
Show me the course I should take.
Renew in me the gift of discernment,
so that I can always see the right direction in which I should go.
And give me the strength and the courage to choose the right course,
even when the sea is rough and the waves are high,
knowing that through enduring hardship and danger in your name
we shall find comfort and peace.
Amen

Basil of Caesarea (c.329-379)

Yahweh will bring on you
and on your people
and on your father’s household
days that have not come since the day
Ephrayim departed from Yehudah
– the king of Ashshur (Asssyria).

On that day Yahweh will whistle to the fly
that’s at the end of the streams of Misrayim [Egypt]
and to the bee that’s in the country of Ashshur.
They’ll come and settle down,
all of them,
in the steep wadis,
in the craggy cliffs,
in all the thorn bushes
and in all the watering holes.

On that day the Lord will shave with a razor
hired beyond the River (with the king of Ashshur)
the head
and the hair on the feet,
and it will also sweep away the beard.

On that day someone will keep alive a heifer from the cattle
and two from the flock,
but from the quantity of the milk they make he will eat curds,
because everyone who’s left within the country will eat curds and syrup.

On that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines
worth a thousand sheqels of silver
will be for briar and for thorn.
With arrows and a bow someone will come there,
because the entire country will be briar and thorn.
But all the hills that are hoed with a hoe
– the fear of briar and thorn won’t come there;
it will be for the roaming of oxen and for the trampling of sheep.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay,The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

God be in head and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes and in my looking;
God be in my mouth and in my speaking;
God be in my heart and in my thinking;
God be at my end and at my departing.

Yahweh again spoke to Ahaz:
‘Ask for yourself a sign from Yahweh your God.
Make it deep, to She’ol,
or make it lofty to the heights.’

Ahaz said, ‘I won’t ask, I won’t test Yahweh.’

He said, ‘Listen, please, household of David.
Is it too small for you, wearying human beings, that you weary my God as well?

Therefore the Lord – he will give you a sign.
There – a girl is pregnant and she’s going to give birth to a son,
and she’ll name him Immanu El [‘God Is with Us’].
He will eat curds and syrup
knowing how to reject the bad and choose the good.
Because before the boy knows how to reject the bad and choose the good,
the land whose two kings you’re dismayed at will be abandoned.’

Goldingay, John The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

O thou, who art the light of the minds that know thee,
the life of the souls that love thee,
and the strength of the wills that serve thee;
help us so to know thee that we may truly love thee;
so to love thee that we may fully serve thee,
whom to serve is perfect freedom.
Amen

Country	Capital	Family	King
Israel / Ephraim	Samaria	Son of Remaliah	Pekah
Judah	Jerusalem	House of David	Ahaz
Aram (Syria)	Damascus		Rezin

In the days of Ahaz ben Yotam son of Uzziyyahu king of Yehudah,
Retsin king of Aram
and Peqah ben Remalyahu king of Yisra’el
went up to Yerushalaim for a battle against it,
but they couldn’t do battle against it.

It had been told ‘David’s household’,
‘Aram has set settled like a swarm on Ephrayim’,
and his mind
and his people’s mind
shook like the trees in a forest shaking before wind.

Yahweh said to Yesha’yahu,

‘Go out, please, to meet Ahaz,
you and “A Remainder Will Go Back” your son,
at the end of the Upper Pool channel at the Washer’s Field causeway.
You’re to say to him,
“Keep watch over yourself, be calm.
Don’t be afraid; your mind is not to go soft on account
of these two stumps of smoking firewood,
because of the angry burning of Retsin and Aram
and ben Remalyahu.
Since Aram has counselled something bad against you
(with Ephrayim and ben Remalyahu), saying
‘We’ll go up against Yehudah and dismay it and break it open for ourselves
and enthrone as king within it ben Tabe’el’,
the Lord Yahweh has said this:

It won’t arise, it won’t happen.
Because the head of Aram is Dammeseq [Damascus],
and the head of Aram is Retsin.
Within yet 65 years Ephrayim will shatter from being a people.
The head of Ephrayim is Shomron [Samaria],
and the head of Shomron is ben Remalyahu.
If you don’t stand firm in trust,
indeed you won’t stand firm at all.”’

John; Goldingay, . The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

God be in head and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes and in my looking;
God be in my mouth and in my speaking;
God be in my heart and in my thinking;
God be at my end and at my departing.

He said,
Go, and say to this people:
‘Keep listening, but don’t understand,
keep looking, but don’t acknowledge.’
Fatten this people’s mind,
make its ears heavy, smear its eyes,
So it doesn’t see with its eyes and listen with its ears,
and its mind understands
and it turns and there is healing for it.
I said, ‘For how long, Lord?’ He said,

‘Until towns have crashed into ruins,
so that there is no inhabitant,
And houses so that there are no people,
and the land crashes into ruins, a desolation.’
Yahweh will send the people away;
vast will be the abandonment in the middle of the country.
When there is still a tenth in it,
it will again be for burning up.
But like a terebinth or like an oak
of which there’s a stump after their felling,
the sacred seed will be its stump.

Goldingay, John;The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

God be in head and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes and in my looking;
God be in my mouth and in my speaking;
God be in my heart and in my thinking;
God be at my end and at my departing.

In the year King Uzziyyahu died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, with his train filling the palace. Seraphs were standing above him; each had six wings. With two it would cover its face, with two it would cover its feet, with two it would fly. One would call to another, ‘Sacred, sacred, sacred, Yahweh of Armies, his splendour is the filling of the entire earth.’ The doorposts on the sills shook at the sound of the one who called, while the house was filling with smoke.

I said, ‘Aagh me, because I’m ruined, because I’m a man polluted of lips, and I live among a people polluted of lips, because my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Armies.’ But one of the seraphs flew to me, in his hand a coal that he had taken with tongs from on the altar. He made it touch my mouth, and he said, ‘There, this has touched your lips, and you waywardness will depart, your wrongdoing will be expiated.’ I heard the Lord’s voice saying, ‘Whom shall I send, who will go for us?’ I said, ‘Here I am, send me.’

Goldingay, John The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Two woes (Hey)

Hey, people adding house to house,
who join field to field,
Until there’s no room,
and you’re made to live alone in the middle of the country.
In my ears Yahweh of Armies [has said]:
If many houses do not become desolation,
big and good ones without inhabitant . . .
Because ten acres of vineyard will make five gallons.
Ten barrels of seed will make a barrel.

Hey, people who start early in the morning
so they can chase liquor,
Stay late in the dusk
so wine can inflame them.
There’ll be guitar and mandolin,
tambourine and pipe and wine at their banquets.
But Yahweh’s deed they don’t look to,
the action of his hands they haven’t watched.

Two therefores

Therefore my people are going into exile
because of not acknowledging.
Its splendour – hungry people,
its horde – parched with thirst.

Therefore She’ol has broadened its appetite,
opened its mouth without limit.
Its magnificence will go down,
its horde and its din and the one who exults in it.
Human beings bow down, individuals fall down,
the eyes of the lofty fall down.
And Yahweh of Armies is lofty in exercising authority;
the sacred God shows himself sacred in faithfulness.
Lambs will pasture as in their meadow,
aliens will eat the fatlings’ wastes.

Four woes (Hey)

Hey, people who haul waywardness
with cords of emptiness,
and wrongdoing as with cart ropes,
Who say, ‘He should hurry,
he should speed up his action, in order that we may see.
It should draw near and come about,
the counsel of Yisra’el’s sacred one, so we may acknowledge.’

Hey, people who say about what is bad, ‘Good’,
and about what is good, ‘Bad’,
Who make darkness into light,
and light into darkness,
Who make bitter into sweet,
and sweet into bitter.

Hey, people who are smart in their eyes,
who in their view are understanding.

Hey, strong men at drinking wine,
forceful people at mixing a drink,
Who declare a faithless person to be in the right
in return for a bribe,
And the faithfulness of the faithful people
they remove from them.

Two therefores
Therefore: like the consuming of straw in a tongue of fire,
when hay sinks down in the flame,
Their root will become veritable rot,
and their blossom will go up like dust,
Because they’ve rejected the instruction of Yahweh of Armies,
spurned the word of Yisra’el’s sacred one.

Therefore Yahweh’s anger flared against his people;
he stretched out his hand against it and struck it down.
Mountains shook, and their corpses became
like refuse in the middle of the streets.
For all this his anger did not turn back;
his hand was still stretched out.
He will lift a signal to the nations from afar,
he will whistle to one from the end of the earth,
and there – with speed, quick, it will come.
There’s none weary, there’s none collapsing, in it;
it doesn’t slumber, it doesn’t sleep.
The belt on its waist doesn’t come loose,
the thong on its boots doesn’t break.
Its arrows are sharpened,
all its bows are directed.
Its horses’ hoofs are thought of like flint,
its wheels like a whirlwind.
Its roar is like a cougar’s;
it roars like lions.
It growls and seizes prey,
and carries it off and there’s no one rescuing.
It will growl over it on that day, like the growling of the sea;
and he will look to the land,
And there, darkness, pressure,
and the light will have gone dark with its thunderclouds.

Goldingay, John; . The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art –
Thou my best thought, by day or by night;
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

I want to sing a song for my friend,
my love song about his vineyard.
My friend had a vineyard on a fertile ridge.
He dug it and stoned it,
and planted it with choice vine.
He built a tower in the middle of it,
and also hewed a press in it.
He hoped it would make grapes,
but it made rotten grapes.

So now, population of Yerushalaim, people of Yehudah,
decide, please, between me and my vineyard.
What more was there to do for my vineyard,
and I didn’t do in it?
Why, when I hoped for it to make grapes,
did it make rotten grapes?

So now I want to let you know, please,
what I’m doing about my vineyard:
Remove its hedge, so it will be for burning up,
break down its wall so it will be for trampling,
so that I make an end of it.
It won’t be pruned and it won’t be hoed;
briar and thorn will grow.
I shall order the clouds not to send rain on it.

Because the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies
is the household of Yisra’el.
The people of Yehudah
are the planting in which he took pleasure.
He hoped for the exercise of authority,
but there – blood pouring out;
for faithfulness,
but there – a cry.

Goldingay, John The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Lord, you have given me so much,
I ask for one more thing –
a grateful heart.

George Herbert

On that day,
Yahweh’s shoot will be
for beauty and for splendour,
And the country’s fruit
for majesty and for glory for Yisra’el’s escape group.
What remains in Tsiyyon,
what is left in Yerushalaim –
‘Sacred’ will be said of it,
everyone who’s been written down for life in Yerushalaim.

If the Lord has washed away
the filth of Tsiyyon’s daughters,
And cleanses from within it
the shed blood of Yerushalaim,
By a spirit of the exercise of authority
and by a spirit of burning away,
Yahweh will create over the entire establishment of Mount Tsiyyon,
and over its meeting place,
A cloud by day, and smoke,
and a brightness of flaming fire by night.
Because over all the splendour will be a canopy,
and it will be a bivouac,
For shade by day from the heat,
and for shelter and for a hiding place from storm
and from rain.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Be thou a bright flame before me,
Be thou a guiding star above me
Be thou a smooth path below me
Be thou a kindly shepherd behind me
Today – tonight -forever
Amen.

St Columba

Because there,
the Lord Yahweh of Armies
Is removing from Yerushalaim and from Yehudah
supply and support:
All supply of bread and all supply of water,
Strong man and man of battle,
leader and prophet, diviner and elder,
Officer over 50, person held in high regard, counsellor,
person smart with charms and understanding chants.
I will make youths their officials;
infants will rule over them.

The people will oppress one another,
each his neighbour.
The youth will be arrogant towards the elder,
one who is slighted towards someone honourable.

Because a man will seize one of his brothers,
his father’s household:
‘You have a coat, you will be a leader for us,
this ruin will be under your hand.’
On that day he will shout,
‘I won’t be one to bind up.
In my house there’s no bread and no coat –
you won’t make me leader of the people.’

Because Yerushalaim has collapsed,
Yehudah has fallen.
Because their tongue and their practices have been towards Yahweh
to be rebellious against his glorious eyes.
The look on their face testifies against them;
they declare their wrongdoing like Sedom and don’t hide it.

Aagh, for their lives,
because they have dealt themselves bad fortune.
Say of the faithful person, ‘It will be good’,
because they will eat the fruit of their practices.
Aagh, for the faithless person, ‘It will be bad’,
because the dealing of his hands will be done to him.

My people ! – infants are their bosses,
women rule over them.
My people! – your guides make you wander;
they’ve swallowed up the course of your paths.
Yahweh is taking his stand to argue,
he’s rising to give judgement for peoples.
Yahweh will come in the exercise of authority
with his people’s elders and its officials.
‘You – you’ve burned up the vineyard,
the humble person’s plunder is in your houses.
What do you mean that you crush my people,
grind the faces of humble ones?
(a declaration of the Lord Yahweh of Armies).’

Yahweh has said:
Since Tsiyyon’s daughters are lofty,
and walk outstretched with their neck,
Flirting with their eyes,
walking and mincing as they walk,
and they jingle with their feet,
The Lord will bare the crown of Tsiyyon’s daughters,
Yahweh will expose their forehead.
On that day the Lord will remove the splendour of the anklets, the bands and the necklaces, the earrings, the bracelets and the veils, the hats, the armlets, the scarves, the amulets and the charms, the rings and the nose rings, the dresses, the capes, the shawls, the purses, the gowns, the vests, the tiaras, the veils and the sashes.

Instead of perfume there will be a stench;
instead of a wrap, a rope;
Instead of a hairdo, a shorn head;
instead of a robe, a wrapping of sack;
branding instead of beauty.

Your men [Tsiyyon] will fall by the sword,
your strength by battle.
Her gateways will lament and mourn;
she’ll be empty, she’ll sit on the ground.
Seven women will take strong hold of one man on that day,
Saying, ‘We’ll eat our bread,
we’ll wear our clothes,
Only may your name be called out over us
– gather up our reviling.’

Goldingay, John; The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

O Love, O God who created me, in your love recreate me.
O Love, who redeemed me,
fill up in me whatever part of your love
has fallen into neglect within me.
O Love, O God, who first loved me,
grant that with my whole heart,
and with my whole soul,
and with my whole strength,
I may love you.

Gertrude the Great