thestreamofconsciousness777

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

During that time your people will escape, every one who is found written down in the book: The wicked ones will certainly act wickedly, and no wicked ones at all will understand; but the ones having insight will understand...

“Come up close, YOU nations, to hear; and YOU national groups, pay attention. Let the earth and that which fills it listen, the productive land and all its produce. For Jehovah has indignation against all the nations, and rage against all their army. He must devote them to destruction; he must give them to the slaughter. And their slain ones will be thrown out; and as for their carcasses, their stink will ascend; and the mountains must melt because of their blood. And all those of the army of the heavens must rot away. And the heavens must be rolled up, just like a book scroll; and their army will all shrivel away, just as the leafage shrivels off the vine and like a shriveled [fig] off the fig tree.

“For in the heavens my sword will certainly be drenched. Look! Upon E’dom it will descend, and upon the people devoted by me to destruction in justice. Jehovah has a sword; it must be filled with blood; it must be made greasy with the fat, with the blood of young rams and he-goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For Jehovah has a sacrifice in Boz’rah, and a great slaughtering in the land of E’dom. And the wild bulls must come down with them, and young bulls with the powerful ones; and their land must be drenched with blood, and their very dust will be made greasy with the fat.”

For Jehovah has a day of vengeance, a year of retributions for the legal case over Zion.

And her torrents must be changed into pitch, and her dust into sulphur; and her land must become as burning pitch. By night or by day it will not be extinguished; to time indefinite its smoke will keep ascending. From generation to generation she will be parched; forever and ever no one will be passing across her. And the pelican and the porcupine must take possession of her, and long-eared owls and ravens themselves will reside in her; and he must stretch out over her the measuring line of emptiness and the stones of wasteness. Her nobles—there are none there whom they will call to the kingship itself, and her very princes will all become nothing. On her dwelling towers thorns must come up, nettles and thorny weeds in her fortified places; and she must become an abiding place of jackals, the courtyard for the ostriches. And haunters of waterless regions must meet up with howling animals, and even the goat-shaped demon will call to its companion. Yes, there the nightjar will certainly take its ease and find for itself a resting-place. There the arrow snake has made its nest and lays [eggs], and it must hatch [them] and gather [them] together under its shadow. Yes, there the gledes must collect themselves together, each one with her mate.

Search for yourselves in the book of Jehovah and read out loud: not one has been missing of them; they actually do not fail to have each one her mate, for it is the mouth of Jehovah that has given the command, and it is his spirit that has collected them together. And it is He that has cast for them the lot, and his own hand has apportioned the place to them by the measuring line. To time indefinite they will take possession of it; for generation after generation they will reside in it.”

-Isaiah 34, NWT

Even The Goat-Shaped Demon Will Call To Its Companion

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

Who is this one coming from Eʹdom, the one with garments of glowing colors from Bozʹrah, this one who is honorable in his clothing, marching in the abundance of his power? “I, the One speaking in righteousness, the One abounding [in power] to save.” Why is it that your clothing is red, and your garments are like those of one treading in the winepress? “The wine trough I have trodden by myself, while there was no man with me from the peoples. And I kept treading them in my anger, and I kept trampling them down in my rage. And their spurting blood kept spattering upon my garments, and all my clothing I have polluted. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the very year of my repurchased ones has come. And I kept looking, but there was no helper; and I began to show myself astonished, but there was no one offering support. So my arm furnished me salvation, and my rage was what supported me. And I kept stamping down peoples in my anger, and I proceeded to make them drunk with my rage and to bring down to the earth their spurting blood.

Isaiah 63:1-6, NWT

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

I speak to them in parables, because they look but don't see, and they listen but don't hear or understand: As soon as there will have been a finishing of the dashing of the power of the holy people to pieces, all these things will come to their finish...

“A revelation by Jesus Christ, which God gave him, to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place. And he sent forth his angel and presented [it] in signs through him to his slave John, who bore witness to the word God gave and to the witness Jesus Christ gave, even to all the things he saw. Happy is he who reads aloud and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and who observe the things written in it; for the appointed time is near.

John to the seven congregations that are in the [district of] Asia:

May YOU have undeserved kindness and peace from “The One who is and who was and who is coming,” and from the seven spirits that are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, “the Faithful Witness,” “The firstborn from the dead,” and “The Ruler of the kings of the earth.”

To him that loves us and that loosed us from our sins by means of his own blood— and he made us to be a kingdom, priests to his God and Father—yes, to him be the glory and the might forever. Amen.

Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, and those who pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in grief because of him. Yes, Amen.

“I am the Al’pha and the O·me’ga,” says Jehovah God, “the One who is and who was and who is coming, the Almighty.”

I John, YOUR brother and a sharer with YOU in the tribulation and kingdom and endurance in company with Jesus, came to be in the isle that is called Pat’mos for speaking about God and bearing witness to Jesus. By inspiration I came to be in the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a strong voice like that of a trumpet, saying: “What you see write in a scroll and send it to the seven congregations, in Eph’e·sus and in Smyr’na and in Per’ga·mum and in Thy·a·ti’ra and in Sar’dis and in Philadelphia and in La·o·di·ce’a.”

And I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me, and, having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands someone like a son of man, clothed with a garment that reached down to the feet, and girded at the breasts with a golden girdle. Moreover, his head and his hair were white as white wool, as snow, and his eyes as a fiery flame; and his feet were like fine copper when glowing in a furnace; and his voice was as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth a sharp, long two-edged sword was protruding, and his countenance was as the sun when it shines in its power. And when I saw him, I fell as dead at his feet.

And he laid his right hand upon me and said: “Do not be fearful. I am the First and the Last, and the living one; and I became dead, but, look! I am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Ha’des. Therefore write down the things you saw, and the things that are and the things that will take place after these. As for the sacred secret of the seven stars that you saw upon my right hand, and [of] the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars mean [the] angels of the seven congregations, and the seven lampstands mean seven congregations.

“To the angel of the congregation in Eph’e·sus write: These are the things that he says who holds the seven stars in his right hand, he who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, ‘I know your deeds, and your labor and endurance, and that you cannot bear bad men, and that you put those to the test who say they are apostles, but they are not, and you found them liars. You are also showing endurance, and you have borne up for my name’s sake and have not grown weary. Nevertheless, I hold [this] against you, that you have left the love you had at first.

“‘Therefore remember from what you have fallen, and repent and do the former deeds. If you do not, I am coming to you, and I will remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Still, you do have this, that you hate the deeds of the sect of Nic·o·la’us, which I also hate. Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: To him that conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

“And to the angel of the congregation in Smyr’na write: These are the things that he says, ‘the First and the Last,’ who became dead and came to life [again], ‘I know your tribulation and poverty—but you are rich —and the blasphemy by those who say they themselves are Jews, and yet they are not but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of the things you are about to suffer. Look! The Devil will keep on throwing some of YOU into prison that YOU may be fully put to the test, and that YOU may have tribulation ten days. Prove yourself faithful even to death, and I will give you the crown of life. Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: He that conquers will by no means be harmed by the second death.’

“And to the angel of the congregation in Per’ga·mum write: These are the things that he says who has the sharp, long two-edged sword, ‘I know where you are dwelling, that is, where the throne of Satan is; and yet you keep on holding fast my name, and you did not deny your faith in me even in the days of An’ti·pas, my witness, the faithful one, who was killed by YOUR side, where Satan is dwelling.

“‘Nevertheless, I have a few things against you, that you have there those holding fast the teaching of Ba’laam, who went teaching Ba’lak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. So you, also, have those holding fast the teaching of the sect of Nic·o·la’us likewise. Therefore repent. If you do not, I am coming to you quickly, and I will war with them with the long sword of my mouth.

“‘Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: To him that conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white pebble, and upon the pebble a new name written which no one knows except the one receiving it.’

“And to the angel of the congregation in Thy·a·ti’ra write: These are the things that the Son of God says, he who has his eyes like a fiery flame, and his feet are like fine copper, ‘I know your deeds, and your love and faith and ministry and endurance, and that your deeds of late are more than those formerly.

“‘Nevertheless, I do hold [this] against you, that you tolerate that woman Jez’e·bel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and misleads my slaves to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent, but she is not willing to repent of her fornication. Look! I am about to throw her into a sickbed, and those committing adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. And her children I will kill with deadly plague, so that all the congregations will know that I am he who searches the kidneys and hearts, and I will give to YOU individually according to YOUR deeds.

“‘However, I say to the rest of YOU who are in Thy·a·ti’ra, all those who do not have this teaching, the very ones who did not get to know the “deep things of Satan,” as they say: I am not putting upon YOU any other burden. Just the same, hold fast what YOU have until I come. And to him that conquers and observes my deeds down to the end I will give authority over the nations, and he shall shepherd the people with an iron rod so that they will be broken to pieces like clay vessels, the same as I have received from my Father, and I will give him the morning star. Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations.’

“And to the angel of the congregation in Sar’dis write: These are the things that he says who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, ‘I know your deeds, that you have the name that you are alive, but you are dead. Become watchful, and strengthen the things remaining that were ready to die, for I have not found your deeds fully performed before my God. Therefore, continue mindful of how you have received and how you heard, and go on keeping [it], and repent. Certainly unless you wake up, I shall come as a thief, and you will not know at all at what hour I shall come upon you.

“‘Nevertheless, you do have a few names in Sar’dis that did not defile their outer garments, and they shall walk with me in white ones, because they are worthy. He that conquers will thus be arrayed in white outer garments; and I will by no means blot out his name from the book of life, but I will make acknowledgment of his name before my Father and before his angels. Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations.’

“And to the angel of the congregation in Philadelphia write: These are the things he says who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens so that no one will shut, and shuts so that no one opens, ‘I know your deeds —look! I have set before you an opened door, which no one can shut—that you have a little power, and you kept my word and did not prove false to my name. Look! I will give those from the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews, and yet they are not but are lying —look! I will make them come and do obeisance before your feet and make them know I have loved you. Because you kept the word about my endurance, I will also keep you from the hour of test, which is to come upon the whole inhabited earth, to put a test upon those dwelling on the earth. I am coming quickly. Keep on holding fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.

“‘The one that conquers—I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will by no means go out [from it] anymore, and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which descends out of heaven from my God, and that new name of mine. Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations.’

“And to the angel of the congregation in La·o·di·ce’a write: These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God, ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or else hot. So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say: “I am rich and have acquired riches and do not need anything at all,” but you do not know you are miserable and pitiable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire that you may become rich, and white outer garments that you may become dressed and that the shame of your nakedness may not become manifested, and eyesalve to rub in your eyes that you may see.

“‘All those for whom I have affection I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent. Look! I am standing at the door and knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into his [house] and take the evening meal with him and he with me. To the one that conquers I will grant to sit down with me on my throne, even as I conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations.’”

After these things I saw, and, look! an opened door in heaven, and the first voice that I heard was as of a trumpet, speaking with me, saying: “Come on up here, and I shall show you the things that must take place.” After these things I immediately came to be in [the power of the] spirit: and, look! a throne was in its position in heaven, and there is one seated upon the throne. And the one seated is, in appearance, like a jasper stone and a precious red-colored stone, and round about the throne [there is] a rainbow like an emerald in appearance.

And round about the throne [there are] twenty-four thrones, and upon these thrones [I saw] seated twenty-four elders dressed in white outer garments, and upon their heads golden crowns. And out of the throne there are proceeding lightnings and voices and thunders; and [there are] seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, and these mean the seven spirits of God. And before the throne there is, as it were, a glassy sea like crystal. And in the midst of the throne and around the throne [there are] four living creatures that are full of eyes in front and behind.

And the first living creature is like a lion, and the second living creature is like a young bull, and the third living creature has a face like a man’s, and the fourth living creature is like a flying eagle. And as for the four living creatures, each one of them respectively has six wings; round about and underneath they are full of eyes. And they have no rest day and night as they say: “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is coming.”

And whenever the living creatures offer glory and honor and thanksgiving to the one seated upon the throne, the one that lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before the One seated upon the throne and worship the One that lives forever and ever, and they cast their crowns before the throne, saying: “You are worthy, Jehovah, even our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.”

And I saw in heaven another sign, great and wonderful, seven angels with seven plagues. These are the last ones, because by means of them the anger of God is brought to a finish.

And I saw what seemed to be a glassy sea mingled with fire, and those who come off victorious from the wild beast and from its image and from the number of its name standing by the glassy sea, having harps of God. And they are singing the song of Moses the slave of God and the song of the Lamb, saying:

“Great and wonderful are your works, Jehovah God, the Almighty. Righteous and true are your ways, King of eternity. Who will not really fear you, Jehovah, and glorify your name, because you alone are loyal? For all the nations will come and worship before you, because your righteous decrees have been made manifest.”

And after these things I saw, and the sanctuary of the tent of the witness was opened in heaven, and the seven angels with the seven plagues emerged from the sanctuary, clothed with clean, bright linen and girded about their breasts with golden girdles. And one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls that were full of the anger of God, who lives forever and ever. And the sanctuary became filled with smoke because of the glory of God and because of his power, and no one was able to enter into the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.”

-Revelation 1-4 & 15, NWT

Bad Men: You Do Not Know You Are Miserable and Pitiable and Poor and Blind and Naked

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

The loving-kindnesses of Jehovah I shall mention, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah has rendered to us, even the abundant goodness to the house of Israel that he has rendered to them according to his mercies and according to the abundance of his loving-kindnesses. And he went on to say: “Surely they are my people, sons that will not prove false.” So it was to them that he came to be a Savior. During all their distress it was distressing to him. And his own personal messenger saved them. In his love and in his compassion he himself repurchased them, and he proceeded to lift them up and carry them all the days of long ago.

Isaiah 63:7-9, NWT

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

If our Good News is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing: Till today whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their hearts. But when there is a turning to Jehovah, the veil is taken away...

“And the entire assembly of the sons of Israel proceeded to depart from the wilderness of Sin by stages, which they took according to the order of Jehovah, and went camping at Reph’i·dim. But there was no water for the people to drink.

And the people fell to quarreling with Moses and saying: “Give us water that we may drink.” But Moses said to them: “Why are YOU quarreling with me? Why do YOU keep putting Jehovah to the test?” And the people went on thirsting there for water, and the people kept murmuring against Moses and saying: “Why is it that you have brought us up out of Egypt to put us and our sons and our livestock to death by thirst?” Finally Moses cried out to Jehovah, saying: “What shall I do with this people? A little longer and they will stone me!”

Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Pass in front of the people and take with you some of the older men of Israel and your rod with which you struck the Nile River. Take it in your hand and you must walk on. Look! I am standing before you there on the rock in Ho’reb. And you must strike on the rock, and water must come out of it, and the people must drink it.” Subsequently Moses did so under the eyes of the older men of Israel. So he called the name of the place Mas’sah and Mer’i·bah, because of the quarreling of the sons of Israel and because of their putting Jehovah to the test, saying: “Is Jehovah in our midst or not?”

And the A·mal’ek·ites proceeded to come and fight against Israel in Reph’i·dim. At this Moses said to Joshua: “Choose men for us and go out, fight against the A·mal’ek·ites. Tomorrow I am stationing myself upon the top of the hill, with the rod of the [true] God in my hand.” Then Joshua did just as Moses had said to him, in order to fight against the A·mal’ek·ites; and Moses, Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

And it occurred that as soon as Moses would lift his hand up, the Israelites proved superior; but as soon as he would let down his hand, the A·mal’ek·ites proved superior. When the hands of Moses were heavy, then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat upon it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on this side and the other on that side, so that his hands held steady until the sun set. Hence Joshua vanquished Am’a·lek and his people with the edge of the sword.

Jehovah now said to Moses: “Write this as a memorial in the book and propound it in Joshua’s ears, ‘I shall completely wipe out the remembrance of Am’a·lek from under the heavens.’” And Moses proceeded to build an altar and to call its name Je·ho’vah-nis’si, saying: “Because a hand is against the throne of Jah, Jehovah will have war with Am’a·lek from generation to generation.”

In the third month after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, on the same day, they came into the wilderness of Si’nai. And they proceeded to pull away from Reph’i·dim and to come into the wilderness of Si’nai and to encamp in the wilderness; and Israel went camping there in front of the mountain.

And Moses went up to the [true] God, and Jehovah began to call to him out of the mountain, saying: “This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and to tell the sons of Israel, ‘YOU yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, that I might carry YOU on wings of eagles and bring YOU to myself. And now if YOU will strictly obey my voice and will indeed keep my covenant, then YOU will certainly become my special property out of all [other] peoples, because the whole earth belongs to me. And YOU yourselves will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to say to the sons of Israel.”

So Moses came and called the older men of the people and set before them all these words that Jehovah had commanded him. After that all the people answered unanimously and said: “All that Jehovah has spoken we are willing to do.” Immediately Moses took back the words of the people to Jehovah. At this Jehovah said to Moses: “Look! I am coming to you in a dark cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you, and that in you also they may put faith to time indefinite.” Then Moses reported the words of the people to Jehovah.

And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: “Go to the people, and you must sanctify them today and tomorrow, and they must wash their mantles. And they must prove ready for the third day, because on the third day Jehovah will come down before the eyes of all the people upon Mount Si’nai. And you must set bounds for the people round about, saying, ‘Guard yourselves against going up into the mountain, and do not touch the edge of it. Anybody touching the mountain will positively be put to death. No hand is to touch him, because he will positively be stoned or will positively be shot through. Whether beast or man, he will not live.’ At the blowing of the ram’s horn they themselves may come up to the mountain.”

Then Moses went down from the mountain to the people, and he set about sanctifying the people; and they engaged in washing their mantles. Accordingly he said to the people: “Get ready during the three days. Do not YOU men come near a woman.”

And on the third day when it became morning it came about that thunders and lightnings began occurring, and a heavy cloud upon the mountain and a very loud sound of a horn, so that all the people who were in the camp began to tremble. Moses now brought the people out of the camp to meet the [true] God, and they went taking their stand at the base of the mountain. And Mount Si’nai smoked all over, due to the fact that Jehovah came down upon it in fire; and its smoke kept ascending like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain was trembling very much. When the sound of the horn became continually louder and louder, Moses began to speak, and the [true] God began to answer him with a voice.

So Jehovah came down upon Mount Si’nai to the top of the mountain. Then Jehovah called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went on up. Jehovah now said to Moses: “Go down, warn the people, that they do not try to break through to Jehovah to take a look and many of them have to fall. And let the priests also who regularly come near to Jehovah sanctify themselves, that Jehovah may not break out upon them.” At this Moses said to Jehovah: “The people are not able to come up to Mount Si’nai, because you yourself already warned us, saying, ‘Set bounds for the mountain and make it sacred.’” However, Jehovah said to him: “Go, descend, and you must come up, you and Aaron with you; but let not the priests and the people break through to come up to Jehovah, that he may not break out upon them.” Accordingly Moses descended to the people and told them.

And God proceeded to speak all these words, saying:

“I am Jehovah your God, who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. You must not have any other gods against my face.

“You must not make for yourself a carved image or a form like anything that is in the heavens above or that is on the earth underneath or that is in the waters under the earth. You must not bow down to them nor be induced to serve them, because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion, bringing punishment for the error of fathers upon sons, upon the third generation and upon the fourth generation, in the case of those who hate me; but exercising loving-kindness toward the thousandth generation in the case of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You must not take up the name of Jehovah your God in a worthless way, for Jehovah will not leave the one unpunished who takes up his name in a worthless way.

“Remembering the sabbath day to hold it sacred, you are to render service and you must do all your work six days. But the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah your God. You must not do any work, you nor your son nor your daughter, your slave man nor your slave girl nor your domestic animal nor your alien resident who is inside your gates. For in six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and he proceeded to rest on the seventh day. That is why Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and proceeded to make it sacred.

“Honor your father and your mother in order that your days may prove long upon the ground that Jehovah your God is giving you.

“You must not murder. “You must not commit adultery. “You must not steal. “You must not testify falsely as a witness against your fellowman.

“You must not desire your fellowman’s house. You must not desire your fellowman’s wife, nor his slave man nor his slave girl nor his bull nor his ass nor anything that belongs to your fellowman.”

Now all the people were seeing the thunders and the lightning flashes and the sound of the horn and the mountain smoking. When the people got to see it, then they quivered and stood at a distance. And they began to say to Moses: “You speak with us, and let us listen; but let not God speak with us for fear we may die.” So Moses said to the people: “Do not be afraid, because for the sake of putting YOU to the test the [true] God has come, and in order that the fear of him may continue before YOUR faces that YOU may not sin.” And the people kept standing at a distance, but Moses went near to the dark cloud mass where the [true] God was.

And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: “This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, ‘YOU yourselves have seen that it was from the heavens I spoke with YOU. YOU must not make along with me gods of silver, and YOU must not make gods of gold for yourselves. An altar of ground you are to make for me, and you must sacrifice upon it your burnt offerings and your communion sacrifices, your flock and your herd. In every place where I shall cause my name to be remembered I shall come to you and shall certainly bless you. And if you should make an altar of stones for me, you must not build them as hewn stones. In the event that you do wield your chisel upon it, then you will profane it. And you must not go up by steps to my altar, that your private parts may not be exposed upon it.’

And to Moses he said: “Go up to Jehovah, you and Aaron, Na’dab and A·bi’hu and seventy of the older men of Israel, and YOU must bow down from a distance. And Moses by himself must approach Jehovah; but they should not approach, and the people should not go up with him.”

Then Moses came and related to the people all the words of Jehovah and all the judicial decisions, and all the people answered with one voice and said: “All the words that Jehovah has spoken we are willing to do.” Accordingly Moses wrote down all the words of Jehovah. Then he got up early in the morning and built at the foot of the mountain an altar and twelve pillars corresponding with the twelve tribes of Israel. After that he sent young men of the sons of Israel and they offered up burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as sacrifices, as communion sacrifices to Jehovah. Then Moses took half the blood and put it in bowls, and half the blood he sprinkled upon the altar. Finally he took the book of the covenant and read it in the ears of the people. Then they said: “All that Jehovah has spoken we are willing to do and be obedient.” So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people and said: “Here is the blood of the covenant that Jehovah has concluded with YOU as respects all these words.”

And Moses and Aaron, Na’dab and A·bi’hu and seventy of the older men of Israel proceeded to go up, and they got to see the God of Israel. And under his feet there was what seemed like a work of sapphire flagstones and like the very heavens for purity. And he did not put out his hand against the distinguished men of the sons of Israel, but they got a vision of the [true] God and ate and drank.

Jehovah now said to Moses: “Come up to me in the mountain and stay there, as I want to give you the stone tablets and the law and the commandment that I must write in order to teach them.” So Moses and Joshua his minister got up and Moses went up into the mountain of the [true] God. But to the older men he had said: “YOU wait for us in this place until we return to YOU. And, look! Aaron and Hur are with YOU. Whoever has a case at law, let him approach them.” Thus Moses went up into the mountain while the cloud was covering the mountain.

And Jehovah’s glory continued to reside upon Mount Si’nai, and the cloud continued to cover it for six days. At length on the seventh day he called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the sight of Jehovah’s glory was like a devouring fire on the mountaintop. Then Moses entered into the midst of the cloud and went on up the mountain. And Moses continued in the mountain forty days and forty nights...

Meanwhile the people got to see that Moses was taking a long time about coming down from the mountain. So the people congregated themselves about Aaron and said to him: “Get up, make for us a god who will go ahead of us, because as regards this Moses, the man who led us up out of the land of Egypt, we certainly do not know what has happened to him.” At this Aaron said to them: “Tear off the gold earrings that are in the ears of YOUR wives, of YOUR sons and of YOUR daughters and bring them to me.” And all the people began tearing off the gold earrings that were in their ears and bringing them to Aaron. Then he took [the gold] from their hands, and he formed it with a graving tool and proceeded to make it into a molten statue of a calf. And they began to say: “This is your God, O Israel, who led you up out of the land of Egypt.”

When Aaron got to see this, he went to building an altar before it. Finally Aaron called out and said: “There is a festival to Jehovah tomorrow.” So on the next day they were early in rising, and they began offering up burnt offerings and presenting communion sacrifices. After that the people sat down to eat and drink. Then they got up to have a good time.

Jehovah now said to Moses: “Go, descend, because your people whom you led up out of the land of Egypt have acted ruinously. They have turned aside in a hurry from the way I have commanded them to go. They have made a molten statue of a calf for themselves and keep bowing down to it and sacrificing to it and saying, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who led you up out of the land of Egypt.’” And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: “I have looked at this people and here it is a stiff-necked people. So now let me be, that my anger may blaze against them and I may exterminate them, and let me make you into a great nation.”

And Moses proceeded to soften the face of Jehovah his God and to say: “Why, O Jehovah, should your anger blaze against your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a strong hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out in order to kill them among the mountains and to exterminate them from the surface of the ground’? Turn from your burning anger and feel regret over the evil against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel your servants, to whom you swore by yourself, in that you said to them, ‘I shall multiply YOUR seed like the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have designated I shall give to YOUR seed, that they may indeed take possession of it to time indefinite.’”

And Jehovah began to feel regret over the evil that he had spoken of doing to his people.

After that Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hand, tablets written upon on both their sides. On this side and on that they were written upon. And the tablets were the workmanship of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved upon the tablets. And Joshua began to hear the noise of the people because of their shouting, and he proceeded to say to Moses: “There is a noise of battle in the camp.” But he said:

“It is not the sound of the singing over mighty performance, And it is not the sound of the singing of defeat; It is the sound of other singing that I am hearing.”

So it came about that as soon as he got near the camp and could see the calf and the dances, Moses’ anger began to blaze, and he at once threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. Then he took the calf that they had made and he burnt it with fire and crushed it till it was fine, after which he scattered it upon the surface of the waters and made the sons of Israel drink it. After that Moses said to Aaron: “What did this people do to you that you have brought a great sin upon it?” To this Aaron said: “Do not let the anger of my lord blaze. You yourself well know the people, that they are evil-inclined. So they said to me, ‘Make for us a god who will go ahead of us, because as regards this Moses, the man who led us up out of the land of Egypt, we certainly do not know what has happened to him.’ Hence I said to them, ‘Who have any gold? They must tear it off themselves that they may give it to me.’ And I proceeded to throw it into the fire and this calf came on out.”

And Moses got to see that the people went unrestrained, because Aaron had let them go unrestrained for a disgrace among their opposers. Then Moses took his stand in the gate of the camp and said: “Who is on Jehovah’s side? To me!” And all the sons of Le’vi began gathering themselves to him. He now said to them: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel has said, ‘Put each one of YOU his sword on his side. Pass through and return from gate to gate in the camp and kill each one his brother and each one his fellow and each one his intimate acquaintance.’” And the sons of Le’vi proceeded to do as Moses had said, so that there fell of the people on that day about three thousand men. And Moses went on to say: “Fill YOUR hand today with power for Jehovah, because each one of YOU is against his own son and his own brother, and that he may confer a blessing upon YOU today.”

And it came about on the very next day that Moses proceeded to say to the people: “YOU—YOU have sinned with a great sin, and now I shall go up to Jehovah. Perhaps I can make amends for YOUR sin.” So Moses returned to Jehovah and said: “Ah, but this people has sinned with a great sin, in that they made a god of gold for themselves! But now if you will pardon their sin, —and if not, wipe me out, please, from your book that you have written.” However, Jehovah said to Moses: “Whoever has sinned against me, I shall wipe him out of my book. And now, come, lead the people to where I have spoken to you of. Look! My angel will go ahead of you, and on the day of my bringing punishment I shall certainly bring punishment upon them for their sin.” And Jehovah began plaguing the people because they had made the calf, which Aaron had made.

And Jehovah said further to Moses: “Go, move up from here, you and the people whom you led up out of the land of Egypt, to the land about which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘To your seed I shall give it.’ And I will send an angel ahead of you and drive out the Ca’naan·ites, the Am’or·ites, and the Hit’tites and the Per’iz·zites, the Hi’vites and the Jeb’u·sites; to a land flowing with milk and honey, for I shall not go up in the midst of you, because you are a stiff-necked people, that I may not exterminate you on the way.”

When the people got to hear this evil word, they began to mourn; and none of them put his ornaments on himself. And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: “Say to the sons of Israel, ‘YOU are a stiff-necked people. In one moment I could go up into the midst of you and certainly exterminate you. So now put down your ornaments off yourself, as I want to know what I am going to do to you.’” And the sons of Israel went stripping their ornaments off themselves from Mount Ho’reb onward.

As for Moses, he proceeded to take his tent away and he pitched it outside the camp, far away from the camp; and he called it a tent of meeting. And it occurred that everyone inquiring of Jehovah would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. And it occurred that as soon as Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise, and they stationed themselves each one at the entrance of his own tent, and they gazed after Moses until he went into the tent. It also occurred that as soon as Moses had gone into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down, and it stood at the entrance of the tent and he spoke with Moses. And all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, and all the people rose and bowed down each one at the entrance of his own tent. And Jehovah spoke to Moses face to face, just as a man would speak to his fellow. When he returned to the camp, his minister Joshua, the son of Nun, as attendant, would not withdraw from the midst of the tent.

Now Moses said to Jehovah: “See, you are saying to me, ‘Lead this people up,’ but you yourself have not let me know whom you will send with me. Moreover, you yourself have said, ‘I do know you by name and, besides, you have found favor in my eyes.’ And now, if, please, I have found favor in your eyes, make me know, please, your ways, that I may know you, in order that I may find favor in your eyes. And consider that this nation is your people.” So he said: “My own person will go along and I shall certainly give you rest.” At this he said to him: “If your own person is not going along, do not lead us up from here. And by what, now, will it be known that I have found favor in your eyes, I and your people? Is it not by your going along with us, in that I and your people have been made distinct from all the other people who are upon the surface of the ground?”

And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: “This thing, too, of which you have spoken, I shall do, because you have found favor in my eyes and I know you by name.” At this he said: “Cause me to see, please, your glory.” But he said: “I myself shall cause all my goodness to pass before your face, and I will declare the name of Jehovah before you; and I will favor the one whom I may favor, and I will show mercy to the one to whom I may show mercy.” And he added: “You are not able to see my face, because no man may see me and yet live.”

And Jehovah said further: “Here is a place with me, and you must station yourself upon the rock. And it has to occur that while my glory is passing by I must place you in a hole in the rock, and I must put my palm over you as a screen until I have passed by. After that I must take my palm away, and you will indeed see my back. But my face may not be seen.”

Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Carve out for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I must write upon the tablets the words that appeared on the first tablets, which you shattered. And get ready for the morning, as you must go up in the morning into Mount Si’nai and station yourself by me there on the top of the mountain. But nobody may go up with you and, too, let nobody else be seen in all the mountain. What is more, no flock or herd should be pasturing in front of that mountain.”

Accordingly Moses carved out two tablets of stone like the first ones and got up early in the morning and went on up into Mount Si’nai, just as Jehovah had commanded him, and he was taking the two tablets of stone in his hand. And Jehovah proceeded to come down in the cloud and station himself with him there and declare the name of Jehovah. And Jehovah went passing by before his face and declaring: “Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth, preserving loving-kindness for thousands, pardoning error and transgression and sin, but by no means will he give exemption from punishment, bringing punishment for the error of fathers upon sons and upon grandsons, upon the third generation and upon the fourth generation.”

Moses at once hurried to bow low to the earth and prostrate himself. Then he said: “If, now, I have found favor in your eyes, O Jehovah, let Jehovah, please, go along in the midst of us, because it is a stiff-necked people, and you have to forgive our error and our sin, and you must take us as your possession.” In turn he said: “Here I am concluding a covenant: Before all your people I shall do wonderful things that have never been created in all the earth or among all the nations; and all the people in the midst of whom you are will indeed see the work of Jehovah, because it is a fear-inspiring thing that I am doing with you.

“For your part keep what I am commanding you today. Here I am driving out from before you the Am’or·ites and the Ca’naan·ites and the Hit’tites and the Per’iz·zites and the Hi’vites and the Jeb’u·sites. Watch yourself that you do not conclude a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, for fear it may prove itself a snare in your midst. But their altars YOU people are to pull down, and their sacred pillars YOU are to shatter, and their sacred poles YOU are to cut down. For you must not prostrate yourself to another god, because Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, he is a jealous God; for fear that you may conclude a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, as they will certainly have immoral intercourse with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone will be certain to invite you, and you will certainly eat some of his sacrifice. Then you will have to take some of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters will be certain to have immoral intercourse with their gods and make your sons have immoral intercourse with their gods.

“You must not make molten idol gods for yourself.

“The festival of unfermented cakes you are to keep. You will eat unfermented cakes, just as I have commanded you, seven days at the appointed time in the month of A’bib, because it was in the month of A’bib that you came out of Egypt.

“Everything that first opens the womb is mine, and, as regards all your livestock, the male firstling of bull and of sheep. And the firstling of an ass you are to redeem with a sheep. But if you will not redeem it, then you must break its neck. Every firstborn of your sons you are to redeem. And they must not appear before me empty-handed.

“Six days you are to labor, but on the seventh day you will keep sabbath. In plowing time and in harvest you will keep sabbath.

“And you will carry on your festival of weeks with the first ripe fruits of the wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year.

“Three times in the year every male of yours is to appear before the [true] Lord, Jehovah, the God of Israel. For I shall drive the nations away from before you, and I will make your territory spacious; and nobody will desire your land while you are going up to see the face of Jehovah your God three times in the year.

“You must not slaughter along with what is leavened the blood of my sacrifice. And the sacrifice of the festival of the passover should not stay overnight until the morning.

“The best of the first ripe fruits of your soil you are to bring to the house of Jehovah your God. “You must not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”

And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: “Write down for yourself these words, because it is in accordance with these words that I do conclude a covenant with you and Israel.” And he continued there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights. He ate no bread and he drank no water. And he proceeded to write upon the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.

Now it came about when Moses came down from Mount Si’nai that the two tablets of the Testimony were in the hand of Moses when he came down from the mountain, and Moses did not know that the skin of his face emitted rays because of his having spoken with him. When Aaron and all the sons of Israel got to see Moses, why, look! the skin of his face emitted rays and they grew afraid of coming near to him.

And Moses proceeded to call them. So Aaron and all the chieftains among the assembly came back to him, and Moses began to speak to them. First after that all the sons of Israel came near to him, and he began commanding them all that Jehovah had spoken with him on Mount Si’nai. When Moses would finish speaking with them, he would put a veil over his face. But when Moses would go in before Jehovah to speak with him, he would take away the veil until his going out. And he went out and spoke to the sons of Israel what he would be commanded. And the sons of Israel saw Moses’ face, that the skin of Moses’ face emitted rays; and Moses put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with him.”

Exodus 17;19-20;24 & 32-34, NWT

The Sight of Jehovah’s Glory Was Like A Devouring Fire On The Mountaintop

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But they themselves rebelled and made his holy spirit feel hurt. He now was changed into an enemy of theirs; he himself warred against them. And one began to remember the days of long ago, Moses his servant: “Where is the One that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is the One that put within him His own holy spirit? The One making His beautiful arm go at the right hand of Moses; the One splitting the waters from before them in order to make an indefinitely lasting name for his own self; the One making them walk through the surging waters so that, like a horse in the wilderness, they did not stumble? Just as when a beast itself goes down into the valley plain, the very spirit of Jehovah proceeded to make them rest.” Thus you led your people in order to make a beautiful name for your own self.

Isaiah 63:10-14, NWT

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In that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful to God: By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the temporary pleasures of sin…

“Now these are the names of Israel’s sons who came into Egypt with Jacob; each man and his household came: Reuʹben, Sim’e·on, Le’vi and Judah, Is’sa·char, Zeb’u·lun and Benjamin, Dan and Naph’ta·li, Gad and Ash’er. And all the souls who issued out of Jacob’s upper thigh came to be seventy souls, but Joseph was already in Egypt. Eventually Joseph died, and also all his brothers and all that generation. And the sons of Israel became fruitful and began to swarm; and they kept on multiplying and growing mightier at a very extraordinary rate, so that the land got to be filled with them.

In time there arose over Egypt a new king who did not know Joseph. And he proceeded to say to his people: “Look! The people of the sons of Israel are more numerous and mightier than we are. Come on! Let us deal shrewdly with them, for fear they may multiply, and it must turn out that, in case war should befall us, then they certainly will also be added to those who hate us and will fight against us and go up out of the country.”

So they set over them chiefs of forced labor for the purpose of oppressing them in their burden-bearing; and they went building cities as storage places for Phar’aoh, namely, Pi’thom and Ra·am’ses. But the more they would oppress them, the more they would multiply and the more they kept spreading abroad, so that they felt a sickening dread as a result of the sons of Israel. Consequently the Egyptians made the sons of Israel slave under tyranny. And they kept making their life bitter with hard slavery at clay mortar and bricks and with every form of slavery in the field, yes, every form of slavery of theirs in which they used them as slaves under tyranny.

Later on the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, the name of one of whom was Shiph’rah and the name of the other Pu’ah, yes, he went so far as to say: “When YOU help the Hebrew women to give birth and YOU do see them on the stool for childbirth, if it is a son, YOU must also put it to death; but if it is a daughter, it must also live.” However, the midwives feared the [true] God, and they did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but they would preserve the male children alive. In time the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them: “Why is it YOU have done this thing, in that YOU preserved the male children alive?” In turn the midwives said to Phar’aoh: “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. Because they are lively, they have already given birth before the midwife can come in to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people kept growing more numerous and becoming very mighty. And it came about that because the midwives had feared the [true] God he later presented them with families. Finally Phar’aoh commanded all his people, saying: “Every newborn son YOU are to throw into the river Nile, but every daughter YOU are to preserve alive.”

Meantime, a certain man of the house of Le’vi went ahead and took a daughter of Le’vi. And the woman became pregnant and brought a son to birth. When she saw how good-looking he was, she kept him concealed for three lunar months. When she was no longer able to conceal him, she then took for him an ark of papyrus and coated it with bitumen and pitch and put the child in it and put it among the reeds by the bank of the river Nile. Further, his sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would be done with him.

After a while Phar’aoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the Nile River, and her female attendants were walking by the side of the Nile River. And she caught sight of the ark in the middle of the reeds. Immediately she sent her slave girl that she might get it. When she opened it she got to see the child, and here the boy was weeping. At that she felt compassion for him, although she said: “This is one of the children of the Hebrews.” Then his sister said to Pharʹaoh’s daughter: “Shall I go and specially call for you a nursing woman from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?” So Phar’aoh’s daughter said to her: “Go!” At once the maiden went and called the child’s mother. Phar’aoh’s daughter then said to her: “Take this child with you and nurse him for me, and I myself shall give you your wages.” Accordingly the woman took the child and nursed him. And the child grew up. Then she brought him to Phar’aoh’s daughter, so that he became a son to her; and she proceeded to call his name Moses and to say: “It is because I have drawn him out of the water.”

Now it came about in those days, as Moses was becoming strong, that he went out to his brothers that he might look at the burdens they were bearing; and he caught sight of a certain Egyptian striking a certain Hebrew of his brothers. So he turned this way and that and saw there was nobody in sight. Then he struck the Egyptian down and hid him in the sand.

However, he went out on the following day and here there were two Hebrew men struggling with each other. So he said to the one in the wrong: “Why should you strike your companion?” At this he said: “Who appointed you as a prince and judge over us? Are you intending to kill me just as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses now got afraid and said: “Surely the thing has become known!”

Subsequently Phar’aoh got to hear of this thing, and he attempted to kill Moses; but Moses ran away from Phar’aoh that he might dwell in the land of Mid’i·an; and he took a seat by a well. Now the priest of Mid’i·an had seven daughters, and as usual they came and drew water and filled the gutters to water their father’s flock. And as usual the shepherds came and drove them away. At this Moses got up and helped the women out and watered their flock. So when they came home to Reu’el their father he exclaimed: “How is it YOU have come home so quickly today?” To this they said: “A certain Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and, besides, he actually drew water for us that he might water the flock.” Then he said to his daughters: “But where is he? Why is it that YOU have left the man behind? Call him, that he may eat bread.” After that Moses showed willingness to dwell with the man, and he gave Zip·po’rah his daughter to Moses. Later she bore a son and he called his name Ger’shom, because, he said: “An alien resident I have come to be in a foreign land.”

And it came about during those many days that the king of Egypt finally died, but the sons of Israel continued to sigh because of the slavery and to cry out in complaint, and their cry for help kept going up to the [true] God because of the slavery. In time God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So God looked on the sons of Israel and God took notice.

And Moses became a shepherd of the flock of Jeth’ro, the priest of Mid’i·an, whose son-in-law he was. While he was driving the flock to the west side of the wilderness, he came at length to the mountain of the [true] God, to Ho’reb. Then Jehovah’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire in the midst of a thornbush. As he kept looking, why, here the thornbush was burning with the fire and yet the thornbush was not consumed. At this Moses said: “Let me just turn aside that I may inspect this great phenomenon, as to why the thornbush is not burnt up.” When Jehovah saw that he turned aside to inspect, God at once called to him out of the midst of the thornbush and said: “Moses! Moses!” to which he said: “Here I am.” Then he said: “Do not come near here. Draw your sandals from off your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

And he went on to say: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses concealed his face, because he was afraid to look at the [true] God. And Jehovah added: “Unquestionably I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their outcry as a result of those who drive them to work; because I well know the pains they suffer. And I am proceeding to go down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a land good and spacious, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the locality of the Ca’naan·ites and the Hit’tites and the Am’or·ites and the Per’iz·zites and the Hi’vites and the Jeb’u·sites. And now, look! the outcry of the sons of Israel has come to me, and I have seen also the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. And now come and let me send you to Phar’aoh, and you bring my people the sons of Israel out of Egypt.”

However, Moses said to the [true] God: “Who am I that I should go to Phar’aoh and that I have to bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” To this he said: “Because I shall prove to be with you, and this is the sign for you that it is I who have sent you: After you have brought the people out of Egypt, YOU people will serve the [true] God on this mountain.”

Nevertheless, Moses said to the [true] God: “Suppose I am now come to the sons of Israel and I do say to them, ‘The God of YOUR forefathers has sent me to YOU,’ and they do say to me, ‘What is his name?’ What shall I say to them?” At this God said to Moses: “I SHALL PROVE TO BE WHAT I SHALL PROVE TO BE.” And he added: “This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, ‘I SHALL PROVE TO BE has sent me to YOU.’” Then God said once more to Moses:

“This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, ‘Jehovah the God of YOUR forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to YOU.’ This is my name to time indefinite, and this is the memorial of me to generation after generation. You go, and you must gather the older men of Israel, and you must say to them, ‘Jehovah the God of YOUR forefathers has appeared to me, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying: “I will without fail give attention to YOU and to what is being done to YOU in Egypt. And so I say, I shall bring YOU up out of affliction by the Egyptians to the land of the Ca’naan·ites and the Hit’tites and the Am’or·ites and the Per’iz·zites and the Hi’vites and the Jeb’u·sites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”’

“And they will certainly listen to your voice, and you must come, you and the older men of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and YOU men must say to him, ‘Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has come in touch with us, and now we want to go, please, a journey of three days into the wilderness, and we want to sacrifice to Jehovah our God.’ And I, even I, well know that the king of Egypt will not give YOU permission to go except by a strong hand. And I shall have to stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonderful acts that I shall do in the midst of it; and after that he will send YOU out. And I will give this people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians; and it will certainly occur that when YOU go, YOU will not go empty-handed. And each woman must ask from her neighbor and from the woman residing as an alien in her house articles of silver and articles of gold and mantles, and YOU must put them upon YOUR sons and YOUR daughters; and YOU must strip the Egyptians.”

However, Moses in answering said: “But suppose they do not believe me and do not listen to my voice, because they are going to say, ‘Jehovah did not appear to you.’” Then Jehovah said to him: “What is that in your hand?” to which he said: “A rod.” Next he said: “Throw it on the earth.” So he threw it on the earth, and it became a serpent; and Moses began to flee from it. Jehovah now said to Moses: “Thrust your hand out and grab hold of it by the tail.” So he thrust his hand out and grabbed hold of it, and it became a rod in his palm. “In order that,” to quote him, “they may believe that Jehovah the God of their forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

Then Jehovah said to him once more: “Stick your hand, please, into the upper fold of your garment.” So he stuck his hand into the upper fold of his garment. When he drew it out, why, here his hand was stricken with leprosy like snow! After that he said: “Return your hand into the upper fold of your garment.” So he returned his hand into the upper fold of his garment. When he drew it out of the upper fold of his garment, why, here it was restored like the rest of his flesh! “And it must occur that,” to quote him, “if they will not believe you and will not listen to the voice of the first sign, then they will certainly believe the voice of the later sign. Still, it must occur that, if they will not believe even these two signs and will not listen to your voice, then you will have to take some water from the Nile River and pour it out on the dry land; and the water that you will take from the Nile River will certainly become, yes, it will indeed become blood on the dry land.”

Moses now said to Jehovah: “Excuse me, Jehovah, but I am not a fluent speaker, neither since yesterday nor since before that nor since your speaking to your servant, for I am slow of mouth and slow of tongue.” At that Jehovah said to him: “Who appointed a mouth for man or who appoints the speechless or the deaf or the clear-sighted or the blind? Is it not I, Jehovah? So now go, and I myself shall prove to be with your mouth and I will teach you what you ought to say.” But he said: “Excuse me, Jehovah, but send, please, by the hand of the one whom you are going to send.” Then Jehovah’s anger grew hot against Moses and he said: “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I do know that he can really speak. And, besides, here he is on his way out to meet you. When he does see you, he will certainly rejoice in his heart. And you must speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I myself shall prove to be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach YOU men what YOU are to do. And he must speak for you to the people; and it must occur that he will serve as a mouth to you, and you will serve as God to him. And this rod you will take in your hand that you may perform the signs with it.”

Accordingly Moses went and returned to Jeth’ro his father-in-law and said to him: “I want to go, please, and return to my brothers who are in Egypt that I may see whether they are still alive.” So Jeth’ro said to Moses: “Go in peace.” After that Jehovah said to Moses in Mid’i·an: “Go, return to Egypt, because all the men who were hunting for your soul are dead.”

Then Moses took his wife and his sons and made them ride on an ass, and he proceeded to return to the land of Egypt. Moreover, Moses took the rod of the [true] God in his hand. And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: “After you have gone and returned to Egypt see that YOU men actually perform all the miracles that I have put in your hand before Phar’aoh. As for me, I shall let his heart become obstinate; and he will not send the people away. And you must say to Phar’aoh, ‘This is what Jehovah has said: “Israel is my son, my firstborn. And I say to you: Send my son away that he may serve me. But should you refuse to send him away, here I am killing your son, your firstborn.”’”

Now it came about on the road at the lodging place that Jehovah got to meet him and kept looking for a way to put him to death. Finally Zip·po’rah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and caused it to touch his feet and said: “It is because you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” Consequently he let go of him. At that time she said: “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.

Then Jehovah said to Aaron: “Go to meet Moses into the wilderness.” With that he went and met him in the mountain of the [true] God and kissed him. And Moses proceeded to tell Aaron all the words of Jehovah, who had sent him, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do. After that Moses and Aaron went and gathered all the older men of the sons of Israel. Then Aaron spoke all the words that Jehovah had spoken to Moses, and he performed the signs under the eyes of the people. At this the people believed. When they heard that Jehovah had turned his attention to the sons of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed down and prostrated themselves.

And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and proceeded to say to Phar’aoh: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel has said, ‘Send my people away that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’” But Phar’aoh said: “Who is Jehovah, so that I should obey his voice to send Israel away? I do not know Jehovah at all and, what is more, I am not going to send Israel away.” However, they went on to say: “The God of the Hebrews has come in touch with us. We want to go, please, a journey of three days into the wilderness and sacrifice to Jehovah our God; otherwise he may strike at us with pestilence or with sword.” At this the king of Egypt said to them: “Why is it, Moses and Aaron, that YOU cause the people to leave off from their works? Go bearing YOUR burdens!” And Phar’aoh continued: “Look! The people of the land are now many, and YOU indeed make them desist from their bearing of burdens.”

Immediately on that day Phar’aoh commanded those who drove the people to work and their officers, saying: “YOU must not gather straw to give to the people to make bricks as formerly. Let them themselves go and gather straw for themselves. Moreover, the required amount of bricks that they were making formerly, YOU will further impose upon them. YOU must not make any reduction for them, because they are relaxing. That is why they are crying out, saying, ‘We want to go, we want to sacrifice to our God!’ Let the service be heavy upon the men and let them work at it, and let them not pay attention to false words.”

So those who drove the people to work and their officers went out and said to the people: “Here is what Phar’aoh has said, ‘I am giving YOU no more straw. YOU yourselves go, get straw for yourselves wherever YOU may find it, because there is to be no reducing of YOUR services one bit.’” Consequently the people scattered about over all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. And those who drove them to work kept urging them, saying: “Finish YOUR works, each one his work, day for day, just as when straw was available.” Later on the officers of the sons of Israel, whom Phar’aoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, these saying: “Why is it YOU did not finish YOUR prescribed task in making bricks as formerly, both yesterday and today?”

Consequently the officers of the sons of Israel went in and began to cry out to Phar’aoh, saying: “Why do you deal this way with your servants? There is no straw given to your servants and yet they are saying to us, ‘Make bricks!’ and here your servants are beaten, whereas your own people are at fault.” But he said: “YOU are relaxing, YOU are relaxing! That is why YOU are saying, ‘We want to go, we want to sacrifice to Jehovah.’ And now go, serve! Though no straw will be given to YOU, yet YOU are to give the fixed amount of bricks.” Then the officers of the sons of Israel saw themselves in an evil plight at the saying: “YOU must not deduct from YOUR bricks one bit of anyone’s daily rate.” After that they encountered Moses and Aaron, who were standing there to meet them as they came out from Pharʹaoh. At once they said to them: “May Jehovah look upon YOU and judge, since YOU have made us smell offensive before Phar’aoh and before his servants so as to put a sword in their hand to kill us.” Then Moses turned to Jehovah and said: “Jehovah, why have you caused evil to this people? Why is it that you have sent me? For from the time that I went in before Phar’aoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have by no means delivered your people.”

So Jehovah said to Moses: “Now you will see what I shall do to Phar’aoh, because on account of a strong hand he will send them away and on account of a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”

And God went on to speak to Moses and to say to him: “I am Jehovah. And I used to appear to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, but as respects my name Jehovah I did not make myself known to them. And I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Ca’naan, the land of their alien residences in which they resided as aliens. And I, even I, have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I remember my covenant.

“Therefore say to the sons of Israel, ‘I am Jehovah, and I shall certainly bring YOU out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver YOU from their slavery, and I shall indeed reclaim YOU with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. And I shall certainly take YOU to me as a people, and I shall indeed prove to be God to YOU; and YOU will certainly know that I am Jehovah YOUR God who is bringing YOU out from under the burdens of Egypt. And I shall certainly bring YOU into the land that I raised my hand in oath to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and I shall indeed give it to YOU as something to possess. I am Jehovah.’”

Afterward Moses spoke to this effect to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses out of discouragement and for the hard slavery.

Then Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying: “Go in, speak to Phar’aoh, Egypt’s king, that he should send the sons of Israel away out of his land.” However, Moses spoke before Jehovah, saying: “Look! The sons of Israel have not listened to me; and how will Phar’aoh ever listen to me, as I am uncircumcised in lips?” But Jehovah continued to speak to Moses and Aaron and to issue the command by them to the sons of Israel and to Phar’aoh, Egypt’s king, in order to bring the sons of Israel out from the land of Egypt.

These are the heads of the house of their fathers: The sons of Reu’ben, Israel’s firstborn, were Ha’noch and Pal’lu, Hez’ron and Car’mi. These are the families of Reu’ben.

And the sons of Sim’e·on were Jem·u’el and Ja’min and O’had and Ja’chin and Zo’har and Sha’ul the son of a Ca’naan·ite woman. These are the families of Sim’e·on.

And these are the names of the sons of Le’vi, according to their family descents: Ger’shon and Ko’hath and Me·rar’i. And the years of Le’vi’s life were a hundred and thirty-seven years.

The sons of Ger’shon were Lib’ni and Shim’e·i, according to their families.

And the sons of Ko’hath were Am’ram and Iz’har and He’bron and Uz’zi·el. And the years of Ko’hath’s life were a hundred and thirty-three years.

And the sons of Me·rar’i were Mah’li and Mu’shi. These were the families of the Levites, according to their family descents.

Now Am’ram took Joch’e·bed his father’s sister as his wife. Later she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of Am’ram’s life were a hundred and thirty-seven years.

And the sons of Iz’har were Ko’rah’and Ne’pheg and Zich’ri.

And the sons of Uz’zi·el were Mish’a·el and El·za’phan and Sith’ri.

Now Aaron took E·li’she·ba, Am·min’a·dab’s daughter, the sister of Nah’shon, as his wife. Later she bore him Na’dab and A·bi’hu, El·e·a’zar and Ith’a·mar.

And the sons of Ko’rah were As’sir and El·ka’nah and A·bi’a·saph. These were the families of the Ko’rah·ites.

And El·e·a’zar, Aaron’s son, took for himself one of the daughters of Pu’ti·el as his wife. Later she bore him Phin’e·has. These are the heads of the fathers of the Levites, according to their families.

This is the Aaron and Moses to whom Jehovah said: “BRING the sons of Israel out from the land of Egypt according to their armies.”

They were the ones speaking to Phar’aoh, Egypt’s king, to bring the sons of Israel out from Egypt. This is the Moses and Aaron.

And it came about on the day that Jehovah spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that Jehovah went on to speak to Moses, saying: “I am Jehovah. Speak to Phar’aoh king of Egypt everything I am speaking to you.”

Then Moses said before Jehovah: “Look! I am uncircumcised in lips, so how will Phar’aoh ever listen to me?”

Exodus 1-6, NWT

Surging Waters: I Shall Have To Stretch Out My Hand And Strike Egypt With All My Wonderful Acts

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

Look from heaven and see out of your lofty abode of holiness and beauty. Where are your zeal and your full might, the commotion of your inward parts, and your mercies? Toward me they have restrained themselves. For you are our Father; although Abraham himself may not have known us and Israel himself may not recognize us, you, O Jehovah, are our Father. Our Repurchaser of long ago is your name. Why do you, O Jehovah, keep making us wander from your ways? Why do you make our heart hard against the fear of you? Come back for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your hereditary possession. For a little while your holy people had possession. Our own adversaries have stamped down your sanctuary. We have for a long time become as those over whom you did not rule, as those upon whom your name had not been called.

Isaiah 63:15-19, NWT

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

He was called God’s friend: And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise…

“When A’bram got to be ninety-nine years old, then Jehovah appeared to A’bram and said to him: “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and prove yourself faultless. And I will give my covenant between me and you, that I may multiply you very, very much.”

At this A’bram fell upon his face, and God continued to speak with him, saying: “As for me, look! my covenant is with you, and you will certainly become a father of a crowd of nations. And your name will not be called A’bram anymore, and your name must become Abraham, because a father of a crowd of nations I will make you. And I will make you very, very fruitful and will make you become nations, and kings will come out of you.

“And I will carry out my covenant between me and you and your seed after you according to their generations for a covenant to time indefinite, to prove myself God to you and to your seed after you. And I will give to you and to your seed after you the land of your alien residences, even the entire land of Ca’naan, for a possession to time indefinite; and I will prove myself God to them.”

And God said further to Abraham: “As for you, you are to keep my covenant, you and your seed after you according to their generations. This is my covenant that YOU men will keep, between me and YOU men, even your seed after you: Every male of YOURS must get circumcised. And YOU must get circumcised in the flesh of YOUR foreskins, and it must serve as a sign of the covenant between me and YOU. And every male of YOURS eight days old must be circumcised, according to your generations, anyone born in the house and anyone purchased with money from any foreigner who is not from your seed. Every man born in your house and every man purchased with money of yours must without fail get circumcised; and my covenant in the flesh of YOU men must serve as a covenant to time indefinite. And an uncircumcised male who will not get the flesh of his foreskin circumcised, even that soul must be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.”

And God went on to say to Abraham: “As for Sar’ai your wife, you must not call her name Sar’ai, because Sarah is her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son from her; and I will bless her and she shall become nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” At this Abraham fell upon his face and began to laugh and to say in his heart: “Will a man a hundred years old have a child born, and will Sarah, yes, will a woman ninety years old give birth?”

After that Abraham said to the [true] God: “O that Ish’ma·el might live before you!” To this God said: “Sarah your wife is indeed bearing you a son, and you must call his name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him for a covenant to time indefinite to his seed after him. But as regards Ish’ma·el I have heard you. Look! I will bless him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him very, very much. He will certainly produce twelve chieftains, and I will make him become a great nation. However, my covenant I shall establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this appointed time next year.”

With that God finished speaking with him and went up from Abraham. Abraham then proceeded to take Ish’ma·el his son and all the men born in his house and everyone purchased with money of his, every male among the men of the household of Abraham, and he went to circumcising the flesh of their foreskins in this very day, just as God had spoken with him. And Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he had the flesh of his foreskin circumcised. And Ish’ma·el his son was thirteen years old when he had the flesh of his foreskin circumcised. In this very day Abraham got circumcised, and also Ish’ma·el his son. And all the men of his household, anyone born in the house and anyone purchased with money from a foreigner, got circumcised with him.

Afterward Jehovah appeared to him among the big trees of Mam’re, while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent about the heat of the day. When he raised his eyes, then he looked and there three men were standing some distance from him. When he caught sight of them he began running to meet them from the entrance of the tent and proceeded to bow down to the earth. Then he said: “Jehovah, if, now, I have found favor in your eyes, please do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be taken, please, and YOU must have YOUR feet washed. Then recline under the tree. And let me get a piece of bread, and refresh YOUR hearts. Following that, YOU can pass on, because that is why YOU have passed this way to YOUR servant.” At this they said: “All right. You may do just as you have spoken.”

So Abraham went hurrying to the tent to Sarah and said: “Hurry! Get three seah measures of fine flour, knead the dough and make round cakes.” Next Abraham ran to the herd and proceeded to get a tender and good young bull and to give it to the attendant, and he went hurrying to get it ready. He then took butter and milk and the young bull that he had got ready and set it before them. Then he himself kept standing by them under the tree as they were eating.

They now said to him: “Where is Sarah your wife?” To this he said: “Here in the tent!” So he continued: “I am surely going to return to you next year at this time, and, look! Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the tent entrance, and it was behind the man. And Abraham and Sarah were old, being advanced in years. Sarah had stopped having menstruation. Hence Sarah began to laugh inside herself, saying: “After I am worn out, shall I really have pleasure, my lord being old besides?” Then Jehovah said to Abraham: “Why was it that Sarah laughed, saying, ‘Shall I really and truly give birth although I have become old?’ Is anything too extraordinary for Jehovah? At the appointed time I shall return to you, next year at this time, and Sarah will have a son.” But Sarah began to deny it, saying: “I did not laugh!” For she was afraid. At this he said: “No! but you did laugh.”

Later the men got up from there and looked down toward Sod’om, and Abraham was walking with them to escort them. And Jehovah said: “Am I keeping covered from Abraham what I am doing? Why, Abraham is surely going to become a nation great and mighty, and all the nations of the earth must bless themselves by means of him. For I have become acquainted with him in order that he may command his sons and his household after him so that they shall keep Jehovah’s way to do righteousness and judgment; in order that Jehovah may certainly bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him.”

Consequently Jehovah said: “The cry of complaint about Sod’om and Go·mor’rah, yes, it is loud, and their sin, yes, it is very heavy. I am quite determined to go down that I may see whether they act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, if not, I can get to know it.”

At this point the men turned from there and got on their way to Sod’om; but as for Jehovah, he was still standing before Abraham. Then Abraham approached and began to say: “Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous men in the midst of the city. Will you, then, sweep them away and not pardon the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are inside it? It is unthinkable of you that you are acting in this manner to put to death the righteous man with the wicked one so that it has to occur with the righteous man as it does with the wicked! It is unthinkable of you. Is the Judge of all the earth not going to do what is right?” Then Jehovah said: “If I shall find in Sod’om fifty righteous men in the midst of the city I will pardon the whole place on their account.” But Abraham went on to answer and say: “Please, here I have taken upon myself to speak to Jehovah, whereas I am dust and ashes. Suppose the fifty righteous should be lacking five. Will you for the five bring the whole city to ruin?” To this he said: “I shall not bring it to ruin if I find there forty-five.”

But yet again he spoke further to him and said: “Suppose forty are found there.” In turn he said: “I shall not do it on account of the forty.” But he continued: “May Jehovah, please, not grow hot with anger, but let me go on speaking: Suppose thirty are found there.” In turn he said: “I shall not do it if I find thirty there.” But he continued on: “Please, here I have taken upon myself to speak to Jehovah: Suppose twenty are found there.” In turn he said: “I shall not bring it to ruin on account of the twenty.” Finally he said: “May Jehovah, please, not grow hot with anger, but let me speak just this once: Suppose ten are found there.” In turn he said: “I shall not bring it to ruin on account of the ten.” Then Jehovah went his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

Now the two angels arrived at Sod’om by evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sod’om. When Lot caught sight of them, then he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the earth. And he proceeded to say: “Please, now, my lords, turn aside, please, into the house of YOUR servant and stay overnight and have YOUR feet washed. Then YOU must get up early and travel on YOUR way.” To this they said: “No, but in the public square is where we shall stay overnight.” But he was very insistent with them, so that they turned aside to him and came into his house. Then he made a feast for them, and he baked unfermented cakes, and they went to eating.

Before they could lie down, the men of the city, the men of Sod’om, surrounded the house, from boy to old man, all the people in one mob. And they kept calling out to Lot and saying to him: “Where are the men who came in to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intercourse with them.”

Finally Lot went out to them to the entrance, but he shut the door behind him. Then he said: “Please, my brothers, do not act badly. Please, here I have two daughters who have never had intercourse with a man. Please, let me bring them out to YOU. Then do to them as is good in YOUR eyes. Only to these men do not do a thing, because that is why they have come under the shadow of my roof.” At this they said: “Stand back there!” And they added: “This lone man came here to reside as an alien and yet he would actually play the judge. Now we are going to do worse to you than to them.” And they came pressing heavily in on the man, on Lot, and were getting near to break in the door. So the men thrust out their hands and brought Lot in to them, into the house, and they shut the door. But they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, from the least to the greatest, so that they were wearing themselves out trying to find the entrance.

Then the men said to Lot: “Do you have anyone else here? Son-in-law and your sons and your daughters and all who are yours in the city, bring out of the place! For we are bringing this place to ruin, because the outcry against them has grown loud before Jehovah, so that Jehovah sent us to bring the city to ruin.” Hence Lot went on out and began to speak to his sons-in-law who were to take his daughters, and he kept on saying: “Get up! Get out of this place, because Jehovah is bringing the city to ruin!” But in the eyes of his sons-in-law he seemed like a man who was joking.

However, when the dawn ascended, then the angels became urgent with Lot, saying: “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are found here, for fear you may be swept away in the error of the city!” When he kept lingering, then in the compassion of Jehovah upon him, the men seized hold of his hand and of the hand of his wife and of the hands of his two daughters and they proceeded to bring him out and to station him outside the city. And it came about that, as soon as they had brought them forth to the outskirts, he began to say: “Escape for your soul! Do not look behind you and do not stand still in all the District! Escape to the mountainous region for fear you may be swept away!”

Then Lot said to them: “Not that, please, Jehovah! Please, now, your servant has found favor in your eyes so that you are magnifying your loving-kindness, which you have exercised with me to preserve my soul alive, but I—I am not able to escape to the mountainous region for fear calamity may keep close to me and I certainly die. Please, now, this city is nearby to flee there and it is a small thing. May I, please, escape there—is it not a small thing?—and my soul will live on.” So he said to him: “Here I do show you consideration to this extent also, by my not overthrowing the city of which you have spoken. Hurry! Escape there, because I am not able to do a thing until your arriving there!” That is why he called the name of the city Zo’ar.

The sun had gone forth over the land when Lot arrived at Zo’ar. Then Jehovah made it rain sulphur and fire from Jehovah, from the heavens, upon Sod’om and upon Go·mor’rah. So he went ahead overthrowing these cities, even the entire District and all the inhabitants of the cities and the plants of the ground. And his wife began to look around from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Now Abraham made his way early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Jehovah. Then he looked down toward Sod’om and Go·mor’rah and toward all the land of the District and saw a sight. Why, here thick smoke ascended from the land like the thick smoke of a kiln! And it came about that when God brought the cities of the District to ruin God kept Abraham in mind in that he took steps to send Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when overthrowing the cities among which Lot had been dwelling.

Later Lot went up from Zo’ar and began dwelling in the mountainous region, and his two daughters along with him, because he got afraid of dwelling in Zo’ar. So he began dwelling in a cave, he and his two daughters. And the firstborn proceeded to say to the younger woman: “Our father is old and there is not a man in the land to have relations with us according to the way of the whole earth. Come, let us give our father wine to drink and let us lie down with him and preserve offspring from our father.”

So they kept giving their father wine to drink during that night; then the firstborn went in and lay down with her father, but he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. And it came about on the next day that the firstborn then said to the younger: “Here I lay down with my father last night. Let us give him wine to drink tonight also. Then you go in, lie down with him, and let us preserve offspring from our father.” So they repeatedly gave their father wine to drink during that night also; then the younger got up and lay down with him, but he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. And both the daughters of Lot became pregnant from their father. In time the firstborn became mother to a son and called his name Mo’ab. He is the father of Mo’ab, to this day. As for the younger, she too gave birth to a son and then called his name Ben-am’mi. He is the father of the sons of Am’mon, to this day.

Now Abraham moved camp from there to the land of the Neg’eb and took up dwelling between Ka’desh and Shur and residing as an alien at Ge’rar. And Abraham repeated concerning Sarah his wife: “She is my sister.” With that A·bim’e·lech king of Ge’rar sent and took Sarah. Afterward God came to A·bim’e·lech in a dream by night and said to him: “Here you are as good as dead because of the woman whom you have taken, since she is owned by another owner as his wife.” However, A·bim’e·lech had not gone near her. Hence he said: “Jehovah, will you kill a nation that is really righteous? Did not he say to me, ‘She is my sister’? and she—did not she too say, ‘He is my brother’? In the honesty of my heart and with innocency of my hands I have done this.” At that the [true] God said to him in the dream: “I too have known that in the honesty of your heart you have done this, and I was also holding you back from sinning against me. That is why I did not allow you to touch her. But now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will make supplication for you. So keep living. But if you are not returning her, know that you will positively die, you and all who are yours.”

So A·bim’e·lech got up early in the morning and proceeded to call all his servants and to speak of all these things in their ears. And the men got very much afraid. Then A·bim’e·lech called Abraham and said to him: “What have you done to us, and what sin have I committed against you, in that you have brought upon me and my kingdom a great sin? Deeds that should not have been done you have done in connection with me.” And A·bim’e·lech went on to say to Abraham: “What did you have in view in that you have done this thing?” To this Abraham said: “It was because I said to myself, ‘Doubtless there is no fear of God in this place, and they will certainly kill me because of my wife.’ And, besides, she is truly my sister, the daughter of my father, only not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. And it came about that, when God caused me to wander from the house of my father, then I said to her, ‘This is your loving-kindness which you may exercise toward me: At every place where we shall come say of me: “He is my brother.”’”

Following that A·bim’e·lech took sheep and cattle and menservants and maidservants and gave them to Abraham and returned to him Sarah his wife. Further A·bim’e·lech said: “Here my land is available to you. Dwell where it is good in your eyes.” And to Sarah he said: “Here I do give a thousand silver pieces of money to your brother. Here it is for you a covering of the eyes to all who are with you, and before everybody, and you are cleared of reproach.” And Abraham began to make supplication to the [true] God; and God proceeded to heal A·bim’e·lech and his wife and his slave girls, and they began bearing children. For Jehovah had tightly shut up every womb of the house of A·bim’e·lech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

And Jehovah turned his attention to Sarah just as he had said, and Jehovah now did to Sarah just as he had spoken. And Sarah became pregnant and then bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Accordingly Abraham called the name of his son who had been born to him, whom Sarah had borne to him, Isaac. And Abraham proceeded to circumcise Isaac his son when eight days old, just as God had commanded him. And Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac his son was born to him. Then Sarah said: “God has prepared laughter for me: everybody hearing of it will laugh at me.” And she added: “Who would have uttered to Abraham, ‘Sarah will certainly suckle children,’ whereas I have given birth to a son in his old age?”

Now the child kept growing and came to be weaned; and Abraham then prepared a big feast on the day of Isaac’s being weaned. And Sarah kept noticing the son of Ha’gar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, poking fun. So she began to say to Abraham: “Drive out this slave girl and her son, for the son of this slave girl is not going to be an heir with my son, with Isaac!” But the thing proved to be very displeasing to Abraham as regards his son. Then God said to Abraham: “Do not let anything that Sarah keeps saying to you be displeasing to you about the boy and about your slave girl. Listen to her voice, because it is by means of Isaac that what will be called your seed will be. And as for the son of the slave girl, I shall also constitute him a nation, because he is your offspring.”

So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin water bottle and gave it to Ha’gar, setting it upon her shoulder, and the child, and then dismissed her. And she went her way and wandered about in the wilderness of Beʹer-sheʹba. Finally the water became exhausted in the skin bottle and she threw the child under one of the bushes. Then she went on and sat down by herself, about the distance of a bowshot away, because she said: “Let me not see it when the child dies.” So she sat down at a distance and began to raise her voice and weep.

At that God heard the voice of the boy, and God’s angel called to Ha’gar out of the heavens and said to her: “What is the matter with you, Ha’gar? Do not be afraid, because God has listened to the voice of the boy there where he is. Get up, lift up the boy and take hold of him with your hand, because I shall constitute him a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes so that she caught sight of a well of water; and she went and began to fill the skin bottle with water and to give the boy a drink. And God continued to be with the boy, and he kept growing and dwelling in the wilderness; and he became an archer. And he took up dwelling in the wilderness of Pa’ran, and his mother proceeded to take a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Now it came about at that time that A·bim’e·lech together with Phi’col the chief of his army said to Abraham: “God is with you in everything you are doing. So now swear to me here by God that you will not prove false to me and to my offspring and to my posterity; that, according to the loyal love with which I have dealt with you, you will deal with me and with the land in which you have been residing as an alien.” So Abraham said: “I shall swear.”

When Abraham criticized A·bim’e·lech severely as regards the well of water that the servants of A·bim’e·lech had seized by violence, then A·bim’e·lech said: “I do not know who did this thing, neither did you yourself tell it to me, and I myself have also not heard of it except today.” With that Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to A·bim’e·lech, and both of them proceeded to conclude a covenant. When Abraham set seven female lambs of the flock by themselves, A·bim’e·lech went on to say to Abraham: “What is the meaning here of these seven female lambs that you have set by themselves?” Then he said: “You are to accept the seven female lambs at my hand, that it may serve as a witness for me that I have dug this well.” That is why he called that place Be’er-she’ba, because there both of them had taken an oath. So they concluded a covenant at Be’er-she’ba, after which A·bim’e·lech got up together with Phi’col the chief of his army and they returned to the land of the Phi·lis’tines. After that he planted a tamarisk tree at Be’er-she’ba and called there upon the name of Jehovah the indefinitely lasting God. And Abraham extended his residence as an alien in the land of the Phi·lis’tines many days.

-Genesis 17-21, NWT

The Cry Of Complaint About Sod’om and Go·mor’rah, Yes, It Is Loud, And Their Sin, Yes, It Is Very Heavy

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

O if only you had ripped the heavens apart, that you had come down, that on account of you the very mountains had quaked, as when a fire ignites the brushwood, [and] the fire makes the very water boil up, in order to make your name known to your adversaries, that on account of you the nations might be agitated! When you did fear-inspiring things for which we could not hope, you came down. On account of you the mountains themselves quaked. And from time long ago none have heard, nor have any given ear, nor has an eye itself seen a God, except you, that acts for the one that keeps in expectation of him. You have met up with the one exulting and doing righteousness, those who keep remembering you in your own ways. Look! You yourself became indignant, while we kept sinning —in them a long time, and should we be saved? And we become like someone unclean, all of us, and all our acts of righteousness are like a garment for periods of menstruation; and we shall fade away like leafage, all of us, and our errors themselves will carry us away just like a wind. And there is no one calling upon your name, no one rousing himself to lay hold on you; for you have concealed your face from us, and you cause us to melt by the power of our error.

Isaiah 64:1-7, NWT

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

All rejoicing has passed away; the exultation of the land has departed: Your men will fall by the sword, your warriors in battle. The gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground…

“Woe to Ar’i·el, to Ar’i·el, the town where David encamped! Add year upon year, YOU people; let the festivals run the round. And I have to make things tight for Ar’i·el, and there must come to be mourning and lamentation, and she must become to me as the altar hearth of God. And I must encamp on all sides against you, and I must lay siege to you with a palisade and raise up against you siegeworks. And you must become low so that you will speak from the very earth, and as from the dust your saying will sound low. And like a spirit medium your voice must become even from the earth, and from the dust your own saying will chirp. And the crowd of those strange to you must become just like fine powder, and the crowd of the tyrants just like the chaff that is passing away. And it must occur in an instant, suddenly. From Jehovah of armies you will have attention with thunder and with quaking and with a great sound, storm wind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.”

And it must occur just as in a dream, in a vision of the night, regarding the crowd of all the nations that are waging war against Ar’i·el, even all those waging war against her, and the siege towers against her and those making things tight for her. Yes, it must occur just as when someone hungry dreams and here he is eating, and he actually awakes and his soul is empty; and just as when someone thirsty dreams and here he is drinking, and he actually awakes and here he is tired and his soul is dried out; thus it will occur with the crowd of all the nations that are waging war against Mount Zion.

Linger, YOU men, and be amazed; blind yourselves, and be blinded. They have become intoxicated, but not with wine; they have moved unsteadily, but not because of intoxicating liquor.

For upon YOU men Jehovah has poured a spirit of deep sleep; and he closes YOUR eyes, the prophets, and he has covered even YOUR heads, the visionaries. And for YOU men the vision of everything becomes like the words of the book that has been sealed up, which they give to someone knowing the writing, saying: “Read this out loud, please,” and he has to say: “I am unable, for it is sealed up”; and the book must be given to someone that does not know writing, [somebody] saying: “Read this out loud, please,” and he has to say: “I do not know writing at all.”

And Jehovah says: “For the reason that this people have come near with their mouth, and they have glorified me merely with their lips, and they have removed their heart itself far away from me, and their fear toward me becomes men’s commandment that is being taught, therefore here I am, the One that will act wonderfully again with this people, in a wonderful manner and with something wonderful; and the wisdom of their wise men must perish, and the very understanding of their discreet men will conceal itself.”

Woe to those who are going very deep in concealing counsel from Jehovah himself, and whose deeds have occurred in a dark place, while they say: “Who is seeing us, and who is knowing of us?” The perversity of YOU men! Should the potter himself be accounted just like the clay? For should the thing made say respecting its maker: “He did not make me”? And does the very thing formed actually say respecting its former: “He showed no understanding”?

Is it not yet but a very little time and Leb’a·non must be turned into an orchard and the orchard itself will be accounted just as a forest? And in that day the deaf ones will certainly hear the words of the book, and out of the gloom and out of the darkness even the eyes of the blind ones will see. And the meek ones will certainly increase their rejoicing in Jehovah himself, and even the poor ones of mankind will be joyful in the Holy One of Israel himself, because the tyrant must reach his end, and the bragger must come to his finish, and all those keeping alert to do harm must be cut off, those bringing a man into sin by [his] word, and those who lay bait even for the one reproving in the gate, and those who push aside the righteous one with empty arguments.

Therefore this is what Jehovah has said to the house of Jacob, he that redeemed Abraham: “Jacob will not now be ashamed, nor will his own face now grow pale; for when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the midst of him, they will sanctify my name, and they will certainly sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and the God of Israel they will regard with awe. And those who are erring in [their] spirit will actually get to know understanding, and even those who are grumbling will learn instruction.”

“Woe to the stubborn sons,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “[those disposed] to carry out counsel, but not that from me; and to pour out a libation, but not with my spirit, in order to add sin to sin; those who are setting out to go down to Egypt and who have not inquired of my own mouth, to take shelter in the stronghold of Phar’aoh and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt! And the stronghold of Phar’aoh must become even for YOU men a reason for shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt a cause for humiliation. For his princes have come to be in Zo’an itself, and his own envoys reach even Ha’nes. Every one will certainly become ashamed of a people that bring no benefit to one, that are of no help and bring no benefit, but are a reason for shame and also a cause for reproach.”

The pronouncement against the beasts of the south: Through the land of distress and hard conditions, of the lion and the leopard growling, of the viper and the flying fiery snake, on the shoulders of full-grown asses they carry their resources, and on the humps of camels their supplies. In behalf of the people they will prove of no benefit. And the Egyptians are mere vanity, and they will help simply for nothing. Therefore I have called this one: “Raʹhab —they are for sitting still.”

“Now come, write it upon a tablet with them, and inscribe it even in a book, that it may serve for a future day, for a witness to time indefinite. For it is a rebellious people, untruthful sons, sons who have been unwilling to hear the law of Jehovah; who have said to the ones seeing, ‘YOU must not see,’ and to the ones having visions, ‘YOU must not envision for us any straightforward things. Speak to us smooth things; envision deceptive things. Turn aside from the way; deviate from the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease just on account of us.’”

Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel has said: “In view of YOUR rejecting of this word, and [since] YOU men trust in defrauding and in what is devious and YOU support yourselves on it, therefore for YOU this error will become like a broken section about to fall down, a swelling out in a highly raised wall, the breakdown of which may come suddenly, in an instant. And one will certainly break it as in the breaking of a large jar of the potters, crushed to pieces without one’s sparing [it], so that there cannot be found among its crushed pieces a fragment of earthenware with which to rake the fire from the fireplace or to skim water from a marshy place.”

For this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “By coming back and resting YOU people will be saved. YOUR mightiness will prove to be simply in keeping undisturbed and in trustfulness.” But YOU were not willing. And YOU proceeded to say: “No, but on horses we shall flee!” That is why YOU will flee. “And on swift [horses] we shall ride!” That is why those pursuing YOU will show themselves swift. A thousand will tremble on account of the rebuke of one; on account of the rebuke of five YOU will flee until YOU will have remained over like a mast on the top of a mountain and like a signal on a hill.

And therefore Jehovah will keep in expectation of showing YOU favor, and therefore he will rise up to show YOU mercy. For Jehovah is a God of judgment. Happy are all those keeping in expectation of him. When the very people in Zion will dwell in Jerusalem, you will by no means weep. He will without fail show you favor at the sound of your outcry; as soon as he hears it he will actually answer you. And Jehovah will certainly give YOU people bread in the form of distress and water in the form of oppression; yet your Grand Instructor will no longer hide himself, and your eyes must become [eyes] seeing your Grand Instructor. And your own ears will hear a word behind you saying: “This is the way. Walk in it, YOU people,” in case YOU people should go to the right or in case YOU should go to the left.

And YOU people must defile the overlaying of your graven images of silver and the close-fitting covering of your molten statue of gold. You will scatter them. Like a menstruating woman, you will say to it: “Mere dirt!” And he will certainly give the rain for your seed with which you sow the ground, and as the produce of the ground bread, which must become fat and oily. Your livestock will graze in that day in a spacious pasture. And the cattle and the full-grown asses cultivating the ground will eat fodder seasoned with sorrel, which was winnowed with the shovel and with the fork. And upon every high mountain and upon every elevated hill there must come to be streams, water ditches, in the day of the big slaughter when the towers fall. And the light of the full moon must become as the light of the glowing [sun]; and the very light of the glowing [sun] will become seven times as much, like the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah binds up the breakdown of his people and heals even the severe wound resulting from the stroke by him.

Look! The name of Jehovah is coming from far away, burning with his anger and with heavy clouds. As for his lips, they have become full of denunciation, and his tongue is like a devouring fire. And his spirit is like a flooding torrent that reaches clear to the neck, to swing the nations to and fro with a sieve of worthlessness; and a bridle that causes one to wander about will be in the jaws of the peoples. YOU people will come to have a song like that in the night that one sanctifies oneself for a festival, and rejoicing of heart like that of one walking with a flute to enter into the mountain of Jehovah, to the Rock of Israel.

And Jehovah will certainly make the dignity of his voice to be heard and will make the descending of his arm to be seen, in the raging of anger and the flame of a devouring fire [and] cloudburst and rainstorm and hailstones. For because of the voice of Jehovah As·syr’i·a will be struck with terror; he will strike [it] even with a staff. And every swing of his rod of chastisement that Jehovah will cause to settle down upon [As·syr’i·a] will certainly prove to be with tambourines and with harps; and with battles of brandishing he will actually fight against them. For his To’pheth is set in order from recent times; it is also prepared for the king himself. He has made its pile deep. Fire and wood are in abundance. The breath of Jehovah, like a torrent of sulphur, is burning against it.”

-Isaiah 29-30, NWT

The Stronghold of Phar’aoh Must Become Even for You Men a Reason For Shame

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

And now, O Jehovah, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are our Potter; and all of us are the work of your hand. Do not be indignant, O Jehovah, to the extreme, and do not forever remember [our] error. Look, now, please: we are all your people. Your own holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion itself has become a sheer wilderness, Jerusalem a desolate waste. Our house of holiness and beauty, in which our forefathers praised you, has itself become something for burning in the fire; and every one of our desirable things has become a devastation. In the face of these things will you continue keeping yourself in check, O Jehovah? Will you stay still and let us be afflicted to the extreme?

Isaiah 64:8-12, NWT

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

His own rage will certainly be poured out like fire: Anyone who is captured will be cut down—run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked, and their wives will be raped...

“And the word of Jehovah continued to occur to me, saying: “Son of man, in what way does the vine tree happen to be different from every other tree, the shoot, that has come to be among the trees of the forest? Is there taken from it a pole with which to do some work? Or do people take from it a peg on which to hang any kind of utensil? Look! Into the fire is where it must be put for fuel. Both ends of it the fire certainly devours, and the very middle of it does get scorched. Is it fit for any work? Look! When it happens to be intact, it is not used for any work. How much less so, when fire itself has devoured it and it gets scorched, can it actually be used for any further work!”

“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘Just like the vine tree among the trees of the forest, that I have given to the fire as fuel, so I have given the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I have set my face against them. Out of the fire they have gone forth, but the fire itself will devour them. And YOU people will have to know that I am Jehovah, when I direct my face against them.’” “‘And I will make the land a desolate waste, for the reason that they have acted unfaithfully,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.”

And the word of Jehovah came further to me, saying: “Man, let Jerusalem know her abominable ways, and say ‘Says the Lord Jehovah to Jerusalem, Your origin and birth were out of the Canaanite country, your father was the Amorite, and your mother was Hittite. And as for your birth, on the day of your being born your navel-string was not cut and you were not bathed with water for lustration; you were unsalted and unwrapped. No eye had mercy on you to do any of these things for you in a humane feeling for you; and you were thrown out on the open range in aversion to your existence on the day of your being born. And I passed by you and saw you kicking in your blood, and said to you in your blood “Live and increase!” I made you like the growths of the range, and you increased and grew large and came to the time of periods; your breasts took shape and your hair sprouted, you being naked and bare. And I passed by you and saw you and found your age was the age for lovemaking; and I spread the flap of my garment over you and covered your nudity, and swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, quoth the Lord Jehovah, and you became mine. And I bathed you with water and washed your blood off you and rubbed you with oil, and dressed you in embroidery and shod you with sea-cow skin and swathed you in lawn and enveloped you in silk and bejeweled you with jewels, and put bracelets on your arms and a necklace round your throat, and put a ring in your nose and earrings in your ears and a magnificent coronet on your head.

“‘And you were bejeweled with gold and silver, and your dress was lawn and silk and embroidery, and you ate farina and honey and oil, and you grew very, very lovely and fit for queenhood, and your reputation for loveliness went out among the nations, because your loveliness was perfect by my beautifying which I had applied to you, quoth the Lord Jehovah; and you trusted to your loveliness and went into prostitution on the basis of your reputation and poured your prostitution out toward every passerby—his it was to be. And you took some of your garments and made yourself many-colored heights and prostituted yourself at them. And you took your magnificent outfit, gold and silver of mine that I had given you, and made yourself male images and committed unchaste acts with them; and you took your embroidered garments and covered them, and my oil and incense you put before them; and my viands that I had given you, farina and oil and honey, you fed to them and put before them for a genial odor. And, quoth the Lord Jehovah, you took your sons and daughters that you had borne to me and sacrificed them to them for their eating. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered my children and gave them, by sending them over, to them. And with all your abominations and prostitutions you did not remember your girlhood days when you were naked and bare; kicking in your blood you were. And after all your wickedness—shame on you, shame on you, quoth the Lord Jehovah— you built yourself a kiosk and made yourself a pagoda in every square; at every head of a road you built your pagoda and debased your beauty and spread your legs apart to every passerby and prostituted yourself by wholesale. And you prostituted yourself to the Egyptians your big-organed neighbors, and carried on the prostitution by wholesale, to provoke me.

“‘And there I stretched out my hand against you and cut down your allowance and gave you up to the will of your haters the daughters of the Philistines, who were humiliated at your course (lewdness).

“‘And you prostituted yourself to the Assyrians because you had not had all you wanted, and even prostituting yourself with them you did not have all you wanted. And you prostituted yourself by wholesale to the country of Canaan, to the Chaldeans; and you did not have all you wanted with this either. What a moping heart was yours, quoth the Lord Jehovah, when you did all these things, the actions of an audacious unchaste woman, when you built your kiosk at the head of every road and made your pagoda in every square! and you were not like a prostitute, gibing at a tip. A woman that commits adultery during wedlock takes tips; they give a fee to all prostitutes; but you gave your fees to all your lovers and bribed them to come to you from all sides in your prostitution. And there was in you a contrast to women in general; in your prostituting yourself when you were not solicited, and in your giving tips when none were given to you, you became a contrast.

“‘So, prostitute, hear Jehovah’s word. Says the Lord Jehovah, Since your slime was emitted and your nudity bared in your prostituting yourself to your lovers and to all your abominations of fetishes, and in view of your children’s blood that you have given to them, therefore here I am gathering all your lovers who have found you sweet, and all whom you love as well as all whom you hate; I will gather them against you from all sides, and bare your nakedness to them, and they shall see all your nakedness; and I will pass on you the sentences of adulteresses and bloodshedders, and will make you a bloody victim of ire and jealousy. And I will give you into their hands, and they will demolish your kiosk and pull down your pagoda and strip you of your clothes and take your magnificent array and leave you naked and bare, and raise an assembly against you and stone you, and mutilate you with their swords, and burn your houses and do justice on you before the eyes of many women; and I will make you leave off as prostitute, neither shall you give tips anymore, and I will slake my ire on you, and my jealousy will turn away from you, and I will be quiet and no longer resentful. Since you did not remember your girlhood days but stirred me with all these things, here I on my part have brought your course down on your own head, quoth the Lord Jehovah, and you have not carried out your lewd design on top of all your abominations.

“‘Here will every proverb-fancier bring out a proverb over you, “Like mother her daughter.” You are the daughter of your mother that held her husband and children in aversion, and the sister of your sisters that held their husbands and children in aversion: your mother was Hittite and your father Amorite. Your big sister was Samaria and her daughters, that lived at your left, and your little sister, that lived at your right, was Sodom and her daughters. And you did not walk in their paths and do the like of their abominations, within a tiny little bit, but were more vicious than they in all your courses. By my life, quoth the Lord Jehovah, your sister Sodom and her daughters did not do the like of what you and your daughters have done. Here, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had the pride of eating their fill of bread and of undisturbed success, and did not strengthen the hands of needy and downtrodden men, and were high-handed and did an abominable thing before me; and I removed them when I saw it. Neither did Samaria sin like half your sinning. And you have outdone them in abominations, and vindicated your sisters by all your abominations that you committed. Bear your disgrace yourself, as you have pleaded your sisters’ cause; by your sins in which you have become more abominable than they, they have become more honest than you; be ashamed yourself and bear your disgrace for having vindicated your sisters. And I will come back to them, to Sodom and her daughters and to Samaria and her daughters, and to you in the middle between them, in order that you may bear your disgrace and be humiliated at all you have done, inasmuch as you cheered them up. And your sister Sodom and her daughters shall come back to their old-time condition, and your sister Samaria and her daughters to theirs, and you and your daughters to yours. And had not your sister Sodom become a story in your mouth in the day of your pride, before your wickedness had been uncovered at the time of the taunting of the daughters of Edom and all the daughters of the Philistines who vented their spite on you on all sides? Your lewdness and abominations you have borne the weight of, quoth Jehovah.

“‘For the Lord Jehovah says, And I will do by you as you did; whereas you despised an adjuration, to break a covenant, I on my part will remember my covenant with you in your girlhood days, and will set up for you a perpetual covenant, and you will remember your courses and be humiliated when you receive your sisters, the ones bigger than you along with the ones smaller than you, and I give them to you for daughters, but not out of your covenant. And I myself will set up my covenant with you, and you will know that I am Jehovah, in order that you may remember and be ashamed and may no longer have a disposition to open your mouth because of your humiliation, when I purge you for all that you have done, quoth the Lord Jehovah.”’

-Ezekiel 15-16, NWT & BY

You People Will Have To Know That I am Jehovah

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

And Moses proceeded to speak in the hearing of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song until their completon: "Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak; And let the earth hear the sayings of my mouth. My instruction will drip as the rain, My saying will trickle as the dew, As gentle rains upon grass And as copious showers upon vegetation. For I shall declare the name of Jehovah. Do YOU attribute greatness to our God! The Rock, perfect is his activity, For all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, with whom there is no injustice; Righteous and upright is he. They have acted ruinously on their own part; They are not his children, the defect is their own. A generation crooked and twisted! Is it to Jehovah that YOU keep doing this way, O people stupid and not wise? Is he not your Father who has produced you, He who made you and proceeded to give you stability? Remember the days of old, CONSIDER the years back from generation to generation; Ask your father, and he can tell you; Your old men, and they can say it to you. When the Most High gave the nations an inheritance, When he parted the sons of Adam from one another, He proceeded to fix the boundary of the peoples With regard for the number of the sons of Israel. For Jehovah’s share is his people; Jacob is the allotment that he inherits. He came to find him in a wilderness land, And in an empty, howling desert. He began to encircle him, to take care of him, To safeguard him as the pupil of his eye. Just as an eagle stirs up its nest, Hovers over its fledglings, Spreads out its wings, takes them, Carries them on its pinions, Jehovah alone kept leading him, And there was no foreign god along with him. He kept making him ride upon earth’s high places, So that he ate the produce of the field. And he kept making him suck honey out of a crag, And oil out of a flinty rock; Butter of the herd and milk of the flock Together with the fat of rams, And male sheep, the breed of Ba'shan, and he-goats Together with the kidney fat of wheat; And the blood of the grape you kept drinking as wine. When Jeshʹu·run began to grow fat, then he kicked. You have grown fat, you have become thick, you have become gorged. So he forsook God, who made him, And despised the Rock of his salvation. They began inciting him to jealousy with strange gods; With detestable things they kept offending him. They went sacrificing to demons, not to God,  Gods whom they had not known, New ones who recently came in, With whom YOUR forefathers were not acquainted. The Rock who fathered you, you proceeded to forget, And you began to leave God out of memory, the One bringing you forth with childbirth pains. When Jehovah saw it, then he came to disrespect them, Because of the vexation his sons and his daughters gave. So he said, ‘Let me conceal my face from them, Let me see what their end will be afterward. For they are a generation of perverseness, Sons in whom there is no faithfulness. They, for their part, have incited me to jealousy with what is no god; They have vexed me with their vain idols; And I, for my part, shall incite them to jealousy with what is no people; With a stupid nation I shall offend them. For a fire has been ignited in my anger And it will burn down to Sheʹol, the lowest place, And it will consume the earth and its produce And will set ablaze the foundations of mountains. I shall increase calamities upon them; My arrows I shall spend upon them. Exhausted from hunger they will be and eaten up by burning fever And bitter destruction. And the teeth of beasts I shall send upon them, With the venom of reptiles of the dust. Outdoors a sword will bereave them, And indoors fright, Of both young man and virgin, Suckling together with gray-haired man. I should have said: “I shall disperse them, I will make the mention of them cease from mortal men,” Were it not that I was afraid of vexation from the enemy, That their adversaries might misconstrue it, That they might say: “Our hand has proved superior, And it was not Jehovah who worked all this out.” For they are a nation on whom counsel perishes, And among them there is no understanding. O that they were wise! Then they would ponder over this. They would consider their end afterward. How could one pursue a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight? Not unless their Rock had sold them And Jehovah had surrendered them. For their rock is not like our Rock, Even our enemies being the ones to decide. For their vine is from the vine of Sod'om And from the terraces of Go·mor'rah. Their grapes are grapes of poison, Their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the venom of big snakes And the cruel poison of cobras. Is it not laid up with me, With a seal affixed to it in my storehouse? Vengeance is mine, and retribution. At the appointed time their foot will move unsteadily, For the day of their disaster is near, And the events in readiness for them do make haste.’ For Jehovah will judge his people And he will feel regret over his servants, Because he will see that support has disappeared And there is only a helpless and worthless one. And he will certainly say, ‘Where are their gods, The rock in whom they sought refuge, Who used to eat the fat of their sacrifices, To drink the wine of their drink offerings? Let them get up and help YOU. Let them become a concealment place for YOU. SEE now that I—I am he And there are no gods together with me. I put to death, and I make alive. I have severely wounded, and I—I will heal, And there is no one snatching out of my hand. For I raise my hand to heaven [in an oath], And I do say: “As I am alive to time indefinite,” If I do indeed sharpen my glittering sword, And my hand takes hold on judgment, I will pay back vengeance to my adversaries And render retribution to those who intensely hate me. I shall intoxicate my arrows with blood, While my sword will eat flesh, With the blood of the slain and the captives, With the heads of the leaders of the enemy.’ Be glad, YOU nations, with his people, For he will avenge the blood of his servants, And he will pay back vengeance to his adversaries And will indeed make atonement for the ground of his people.

Dueteronomy 31:30 & 32:1-43, NWT

With A Stupid Nation I Shall Offend Them

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money: All the sinners among my people who say, “Disaster will never overtake or confront us,” will die by the sword...

“And now this commandment is to YOU, O priests. If YOU will not listen, and if YOU will not lay [it] to heart to give glory to my name,” Jehovah of armies has said, “I shall also certainly send upon YOU the curse, and I will curse YOUR blessings. Yes, I have even cursed the [blessing], because YOU are not laying [it] to heart.”

“Look! I am rebuking on YOUR account the [sown] seed, and I will scatter dung upon YOUR faces, the dung of YOUR festivals; and someone will actually carry YOU away to it. And YOU will have to know that I have sent to YOU this commandment, in order that my covenant with Le’vi may continue,” Jehovah of armies has said.

“As for my covenant, it proved to be with him, [one] of life and of peace, and I kept giving them to him, with fear. And he continued fearing me; yes, because of my name he himself was struck with terror. The very law of truth proved to be in his mouth, and there was no unrighteousness to be found on his lips. In peace and in uprightness he walked with me, and many were those whom he turned back from error. For the lips of a priest are the ones that should keep knowledge, and [the] law is what people should seek from his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of armies.

“But YOU men—YOU have turned aside from the way. YOU have caused many to stumble in the law. YOU have ruined the covenant of Le’vi,” Jehovah of armies has said. “And I also, for my part, shall certainly make YOU to be despised and low to all the people, according as YOU were not keeping my ways, but were showing partiality in the law.”

“Is it not one father that all of us have? Is it not one God that has created us? Why is it that we deal treacherously with one another, in profaning the covenant of our forefathers? Judah has dealt treacherously, and a detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of Jehovah, which He has loved, and he has taken possession of the daughter of a foreign god as a bride. Jehovah will cut off each one that does it, one who is awake and one who is answering, from the tents of Jacob, and one who is presenting a gift offering to Jehovah of armies.”

“And this is the second thing that YOU people do, [this resulting in] covering with tears the altar of Jehovah, with weeping and sighing, so that there is no more a turning toward the gift offering or a taking of pleasure [in anything] from YOUR hand. And YOU have said, ‘On what account?’ On this account, that Jehovah himself has borne witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you yourself have dealt treacherously, although she is your partner and the wife of your covenant. And there was one who did not do [it], as he had what was remaining of [the] spirit. And what was that one seeking? The seed of God. And YOU people must guard yourselves respecting YOUR spirit, and with the wife of your youth may no one deal treacherously. For he has hated a divorcing,” Jehovah the God of Israel has said; “and the one who with violence has covered over his garment,” Jehovah of armies has said. “And YOU must guard yourselves respecting YOUR spirit, and YOU must not deal treacherously.

“YOU people have made Jehovah weary by YOUR words, and YOU have said, ‘In what way have we made [him] weary?’ By YOUR saying, ‘Everyone that is doing bad is good in the eyes of Jehovah, and in such ones he himself has taken delight’; or, ‘Where is the God of justice?’”

“Look! I am sending my messenger, and he must clear up a way before me. And suddenly there will come to His temple the [true] Lord, whom YOU people are seeking, and the messenger of the covenant in whom YOU are delighting. Look! He will certainly come,” Jehovah of armies has said.

“But who will be putting up with the day of his coming, and who will be the one standing when he appears? For he will be like the fire of a refiner and like the lye of laundrymen. And he must sit as a refiner and cleanser of silver and must cleanse the sons of Le’vi; and he must clarify them like gold and like silver, and they will certainly become to Jehovah people presenting a gift offering in righteousness. And the gift offering of Judah and of Jerusalem will actually be gratifying to Jehovah, as in the days of long ago and as in the years of antiquity.

“And I will come near to YOU people for the judgment, and I will become a speedy witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against those swearing falsely, and against those acting fraudulently with the wages of a wage worker, with [the] widow and with [the] fatherless boy, and those turning away the alien resident, while they have not feared me,” Jehovah of armies has said.

“For I am Jehovah; I have not changed. And YOU are sons of Jacob; YOU have not come to YOUR finish. From the days of YOUR forefathers YOU have turned aside from my regulations and have not kept [them]. Return to me, and I will return to YOU,” Jehovah of armies has said. And YOU have said: “In what way shall we return?”

“Will earthling man rob God? But YOU are robbing me.” And YOU have said: “In what way have we robbed you?”

“In the tenth parts and in the contributions. With the curse YOU are cursing [me], and me YOU are robbing—the nation in its entirety. Bring all the tenth parts into the storehouse, that there may come to be food in my house; and test me out, please, in this respect,” Jehovah of armies has said, “whether I shall not open to YOU people the floodgates of the heavens and actually empty out upon YOU a blessing until there is no more want.”

“And I will rebuke for YOU the devouring one, and it will not ruin for YOU the fruit of the ground, nor will the vine in the field prove fruitless for YOU,” Jehovah of armies has said.

“And all the nations will have to pronounce YOU happy, for YOU yourselves will become a land of delight,” Jehovah of armies has said.

“Strong have been YOUR words against me,” Jehovah has said. And YOU have said: “What have we spoken with one another against you?”

“YOU have said, ‘It is of no value to serve God. And what profit is there in that we have kept the obligation to him, and that we have walked dejectedly on account of Jehovah of armies? And at present we are pronouncing presumptuous people happy. Also, the doers of wickedness have been built up. Also, they have tested God out and keep getting away.’”

At that time those in fear of Jehovah spoke with one another, each one with his companion, and Jehovah kept paying attention and listening. And a book of remembrance began to be written up before him for those in fear of Jehovah and for those thinking upon his name.

“And they will certainly become mine,” Jehovah of armies has said, “at the day when I am producing a special property. And I will show compassion upon them, just as a man shows compassion upon his son who is serving him. And YOU people will again certainly see [the distinction] between a righteous one and a wicked one, between one serving God and one who has not served him.”

“For, look! the day is coming that is burning like the furnace, and all the presumptuous ones and all those doing wickedness must become as stubble. And the day that is coming will certainly devour them,” Jehovah of armies has said, “so that it will not leave to them either root or bough. And to YOU who are in fear of my name the sun of righteousness will certainly shine forth, with healing in its wings; and YOU will actually go forth and paw the ground like fattened calves.”

“And YOU people will certainly tread down [the] wicked ones, for they will become as powder under the soles of YOUR feet in the day on which I am acting,” Jehovah of armies has said.

“Remember, YOU people, the law of Moses my servant with which I commanded him in Ho’reb concerning all Israel, even regulations and judicial decisions.

“Look! I am sending to YOU people E·li’jah the prophet before the coming of the great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah. And he must turn the heart of fathers back toward sons, and the heart of sons back toward fathers; in order that I may not come and actually strike the earth with a devoting [of it] to destruction.”

-Malachi 2-4, NWT

Look! He Will Certainly Come

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

The vision of Isaiah the son of A'moz that he visioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uz·zi'ah, Jo'tham, A'haz [and] Hez·e·ki'ah, kings of Judah:

Isaiah 1:1, NWT

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

They will begin to fear the name of Jehovah: These things went on befalling them as examples, and they were written for a warning to us upon whom the ends of the systems of things have arrived...

“In the twenty-seventh year of Jer·o·bo’am the king of Israel, Az·a·ri’ah the son of Am·a·zi’ah the king of Judah became king. Sixteen years old he happened to be when he began to reign, and for fifty-two years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Je·co·li’ah of Jerusalem. And he continued to do what was upright in Jehovah’s eyes, according to all that Am·a·zi’ah his father had done. It was only that the high places did not disappear. The people were still sacrificing and making sacrificial smoke on the high places. Finally Jehovah plagued the king, and he continued to be a leper until the day of his death, and he kept dwelling in his house exempt from duties, while Jo’tham the king’s son was over the house, judging the people of the land. As for the rest of the affairs of Az·a·ri’ah and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the affairs of the days of the kings of Judah? At length Az·a·ri’ah lay down with his forefathers, and they buried him with his forefathers in the City of David; and Jo’tham his son began to reign in place of him.

In the second year of Pe’kah the son of Rem·a·li’ah the king of Israel, Jo’tham the son of Uz·zi’ah the king of Judah became king. Twenty-five years old he happened to be when he began to reign, and for sixteen years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Je·ru’sha the daughter of Za’dok. And he continued to do what was right in Jehovah’s eyes. According to all that Uz·zi’ah his father had done, he did. It was only that the high places did not disappear. The people were still sacrificing and making sacrificial smoke on the high places. He it was that built the upper gate of the house of Jehovah. As for the rest of the affairs of Jo’tham, what he did, are they not written in the book of the affairs of the days of the kings of Judah? In those days Jehovah started to send against Judah Re’zin the king of Syria and Pe’kah the son of Rem·a·li’ah. Finally Jo’tham lay down with his forefathers and was buried with his forefathers in the City of David his forefather; and A’haz his son began to reign in place of him.

In the seventeenth year of Pe’kah the son of Rem·a·li’ah, A’haz the son of Jo’tham the king of Judah became king. Twenty years old was A’haz when he began to reign, and for sixteen years he reigned in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the eyes of Jehovah his God like David his forefather. And he went walking in the way of the kings of Israel, and even his own son he made pass through the fire, according to the detestable things of the nations whom Jehovah drove out because of the sons of Israel. And he kept sacrificing and making sacrificial smoke on the high places and upon the hills and under every luxuriant tree.

It was then that Re’zin the king of Syria and Pe’kah the son of Rem·a·li’ah the king of Israel proceeded to come up against Jerusalem in war and laid siege against A’haz, but they were not able to fight. At that time Re’zin the king of Syria restored E’lath to E’dom, after which he cleared out the Jews from E’lath; and the E’dom·ites, for their part, entered E’lath and kept dwelling there down to this day. So A’haz sent messengers to Tig’lath-pil·e’ser the king of As·syr’i·a, saying: “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me out of the palm of the king of Syria and out of the palm of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.” Accordingly A’haz took the silver and the gold that was to be found at the house of Jehovah and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent the king of As·syr’i·a a bribe. At that the king of As·syr’i·a listened to him and the king of As·syr’i·a went up to Damascus and captured it and led its [people] into exile at Kir, and Re’zin he put to death.

Then King A’haz went to meet Tig’lath-pil·e’ser the king of As·syr’i·a at Damascus, and he got to see the altar that was in Damascus. So King A’haz sent U·ri’jah the priest the design of the altar and its pattern as respects all its workmanship. And U·ri’jah the priest proceeded to build the altar. According to all that King A’haz had sent from Damascus was the way that U·ri’jah the priest made it, pending the time that King A’haz came from Damascus. When the king came from Damascus, the king got to see the altar; and the king began to go near to the altar and make offerings upon it. And he continued to make his burnt offering and his grain offering smoke and to pour out his drink offering and to sprinkle the blood of the communion sacrifices that were his upon the altar. And the copper altar that was before Jehovah he now brought near from in front of the house, from between his altar and the house of Jehovah, and put it at the north side of his altar. And King A’haz went on to command him, even U·ri’jah the priest, saying: “Upon the great altar make the burnt offering of the morning smoke, also the grain offering of the evening and the burnt offering of the king and his grain offering and the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their grain offering and their drink offerings; and all the blood of burnt offering and all the blood of a sacrifice you should sprinkle upon it. As for the copper altar, it will become something for me to take under consideration.” And U·ri’jah the priest went doing according to all that King A’haz had commanded.

Furthermore, King A’haz cut the sidewalls of the carriages in pieces and removed from off them the basins; and the sea he took down off the copper bulls that were underneath it and then put it upon a stone pavement. And the covered structure for the sabbath that they had built in the house and the king’s outer entryway he shifted from the house of Jehovah because of the king of As·syr’i·a.

As for the rest of the affairs of A’haz, what he did, are they not written in the book of the affairs of the days of the kings of Judah? Finally A’haz lay down with his forefathers and was buried with his forefathers in the City of David; and Hez·e·ki’ah his son began to reign in place of him.

In the twelfth year of A’haz the king of Judah, Ho·she’a the son of E’lah became king in Sa·mar’i·a over Israel for nine years. And he continued to do what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes, only not as the kings of Israel that happened to be prior to him. It was against him that Shal·man·e’ser the king of As·syr’i·a came up, and Ho·she’a came to be his servant and began to pay tribute to him. However, the king of As·syr’i·a got to find conspiracy in Ho·she’a’s case, in that he had sent messengers to So the king of Egypt and did not bring the tribute up to the king of As·syr’i·a as in former years. Hence the king of As·syr’i·a shut him up and kept him bound in the house of detention.

And the king of As·syr’i·a proceeded to come up against all the land and to come up to Sa·mar’i·a and lay siege against it for three years. In the ninth year of Ho·she’a, the king of As·syr’i·a captured Sa·mar’i·a and then led Israel into exile in As·syr’i·a and kept them dwelling in Ha’lah and in Ha’bor at the river Go’zan and in the cities of the Medes.

And it came about because the sons of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Phar’aoh the king of Egypt, and they began to fear other gods; and they kept walking in the statutes of the nations whom Jehovah had driven out from before the sons of Israel, and [in the statutes of] the kings of Israel that they had made; and the sons of Israel went searching into the things that were not right toward Jehovah their God and kept building themselves high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen clear to the fortified city; and they kept setting up for themselves sacred pillars and sacred poles upon every high hill and under every luxuriant tree; and there on all the high places they continued to make sacrificial smoke the same as the nations whom Jehovah had taken into exile because of them, and they kept doing bad things to offend Jehovah; And they continued to serve dungy idols, concerning which Jehovah had said to them: “YOU must not do this thing”; and Jehovah kept warning Israel and Judah by means of all his prophets [and] every visionary, saying: “Turn back from YOUR bad ways and keep my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law that I commanded YOUR forefathers and that I have sent to YOU by means of my servants the prophets”; and they did not listen but kept hardening their necks like the necks of their forefathers that had not exercised faith in Jehovah their God; and they continued rejecting his regulations and his covenant that he had concluded with their forefathers and his reminders with which he had warned them, and they went following vain idols and became vain themselves, even in imitation of the nations that were all around them, concerning whom Jehovah had commanded them not to do like them;

And they kept leaving all the commandments of Jehovah their God and proceeded to make for themselves molten statues, two calves, and to make a sacred pole, and they began to bow down to all the army of the heavens and to serve Ba’al; and they continued to make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire and to practice divination and to look for omens, and they kept selling themselves to do what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah, to offend him;

Therefore Jehovah got very incensed against Israel, so that he removed them from his sight. He did not let any remain but the tribe of Judah alone.

Even Judah itself did not keep the commandments of Jehovah their God, but they went walking in the statutes of Israel that they had made. Consequently Jehovah rejected all the seed of Israel and kept afflicting them and giving them into the hand of pillagers, until he had cast them away from before him. For he ripped Israel off from the house of David, and they proceeded to make Jer·o·bo’am the son of Ne’bat king; and Jer·o·bo’am proceeded to part Israel from following Jehovah, and he caused them to sin with a great sin. And the sons of Israel went walking in all the sins of Jer·o·bo’am that he had done. They did not depart from them, until Jehovah removed Israel from his sight, just as he had spoken by means of all his servants the prophets. So Israel went off its own soil into exile in As·syr’i·a down to this day.

Subsequently the king of As·syr’i·a brought people from Babylon and Cu’thah and Av’va and Ha’math and Seph·ar·va’im and had them dwell in the cities of Sa·mar’i·a instead of the sons of Israel; and they began to take possession of Sa·mar’i·a and to dwell in its cities. And it came about at the start of their dwelling there that they did not fear Jehovah. Therefore Jehovah sent lions among them, and they came to be killers among them. So they sent word to the king of As·syr’i·a, saying: “The nations that you have taken into exile and then settled in the cities of Sa·mar’i·a have not known the religion of the God of the land, so that he keeps sending lions among them; and, look! they are putting them to death, inasmuch as there are none knowing the religion of the God of the land.”

At that the king of As·syr’i·a commanded, saying: “Have one of the priests go there whom YOU led into exile from there, that he may go and dwell there and teach them the religion of the God of the land.” Accordingly one of the priests whom they had led into exile from Sa·mar’i·a came and began dwelling in Beth’el, and he came to be a teacher of them as to how they ought to fear Jehovah.

However, each different nation came to be a maker of its own god, which they then deposited in the house of the high places that the Sa·mar’i·tans had made, each different nation, in their cities where they were dwelling. And the men of Babylon, for their part, made Suc’coth-be’noth, and the men of Cuth, for their part, made Ner’gal, and the men of Ha’math, for their part, made A·shi’ma. As for the Av’vites, they made Nib’haz and Tar’tak; and the Se’phar·vites were burning their sons in the fire to A·dram’me·lech and A·nam’me·lech the gods of Seph·ar·va’im. And they came to be fearers of Jehovah and went making for themselves from the people in general priests of high places, and they came to be functionaries for them in the house of the high places. It was of Jehovah that they became fearers, but it was of their own gods that they proved to be worshipers, according to the religion of the nations from among whom they had led them into exile.

Down to this day they are doing according to their former religions. There were none fearing Jehovah and none doing according to his statutes and his judicial decisions and the law and the commandment that Jehovah had commanded the sons of Jacob, whose name he made Israel; when Jehovah concluded a covenant with them and commanded them, saying: “YOU must not fear other gods, and YOU must not bow down to them nor serve them nor sacrifice to them. But Jehovah, who brought YOU up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched-out arm, is the One whom YOU should fear, and to him YOU should bow down, and to him YOU should sacrifice. And the regulations and the judicial decisions and the law and the commandment that he wrote for YOU, YOU should take care to do always; and YOU must not fear other gods. And the covenant that I have concluded with YOU, YOU must not forget; and YOU must not fear other gods. But it is Jehovah YOUR God that YOU should fear, as he is the one that will deliver YOU out of the hand of all YOUR enemies.”

And they did not obey, but it was according to their former religion that they were doing. And these nations came to be fearers of Jehovah, but it was their own graven images that they proved to be serving. As for both their sons and their grandsons, it was just as their forefathers had done that they themselves are doing down to this day.

And it came about in the third year of Ho·she’a the son of E’lah the king of Israel that Hez·e·ki’ah the son of A’haz the king of Judah became king. Twenty-five years old he happened to be when he began to reign, and for twenty-nine years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was A’bi the daughter of Zech·a·ri’ah. And he continued to do what was right in Jehovah’s eyes, according to all that David his forefather had done. He it was that removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars to pieces and cut down the sacred pole and crushed to pieces the copper serpent that Moses had made; for down to those days the sons of Israel had continually been making sacrificial smoke to it, and it used to be called the copper serpent-idol. In Jehovah the God of Israel he trusted; and after him there proved to be no one like him among all the kings of Judah, even those who had happened to be prior to him. And he kept sticking to Jehovah. He did not turn aside from following him, but he continued keeping his commandments that Jehovah had commanded Moses. And Jehovah proved to be with him. Wherever he would go out, he would act prudently; and he proceeded to rebel against the king of As·syr’i·a and did not serve him. It was he that struck down the Phi·lis’tines clear to Ga’za and also its territories, from the tower of the watchmen clear to the fortified city.

And it came about in the fourth year of King Hez·e·ki’ah, that is, the seventh year of Ho·she’a the son of E’lah the king of Israel, that Shal·man·e’ser the king of As·syr’i·a came up against Sa·mar’i·a and began to lay siege to it. And they got to capture it at the end of three years; in the sixth year of Hez·e·ki’ah, that is, the ninth year of Ho·she’a the king of Israel, Sa·mar’i·a was captured. After that the king of As·syr’i·a took Israel into exile in As·syr’i·a and set them down in Ha’lah and in Ha’bor at the river Go’zan and in the cities of the Medes, over the fact that they had not listened to the voice of Jehovah their God, but kept overstepping his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of Jehovah had commanded. They neither listened nor performed.

And in the fourteenth year of King Hez·e·ki’ah, Sen·nach’er·ib the king of As·syr’i·a came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and proceeded to seize them. So Hez·e·ki’ah the king of Judah sent to the king of As·syr’i·a at La’chish, saying: “I have sinned. Turn back from against me. Whatever you may impose upon me I shall carry.” Accordingly the king of As·syr’i·a laid upon Hez·e·ki’ah the king of Judah three hundred silver talents and thirty gold talents. Therefore Hez·e·ki’ah gave all the silver that was to be found at the house of Jehovah and in the treasures of the king’s house. At that time Hez·e·ki’ah cut off the doors of the temple of Jehovah and the doorposts that Hez·e·ki’ah the king of Judah had overlaid and then gave them to the king of As·syr’i·a.

And the king of As·syr’i·a proceeded to send Tar’tan and Rab’sa·ris and Rab’sha·keh from La’chish to King Hez·e·ki’ah with a heavy military force to Jerusalem, that they might go up and come to Jerusalem. So they went up and came and stood still by the conduit of the upper pool, which is at the highway of the laundryman’s field. And they began to call out to the king, but there came out to them E·li’a·kim the son of Hil·ki’ah, who was over the household, and Sheb’nah the secretary and Jo’ah the son of A’saph the recorder.

Accordingly Rab’sha·keh said to them: “Please, say to Hez·e·ki’ah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of As·syr’i·a, has said: “What is this confidence in which you have trusted? You have said (but it is the word of lips), ‘There are counsel and mightiness for the war.’ Now in whom have you put your trust, that you have rebelled against me? Now, look! you have put your trust in the support of this crushed reed, Egypt, which, if a man should brace himself upon it, would certainly enter into his palm and pierce it. That is the way Phar’aoh the king of Egypt is to all those putting their trust in him. And in case YOU men should say to me, ‘It is Jehovah our God in whom we have put our trust,’ is he not the one whose high places and whose altars Hez·e·ki’ah has removed, while he says to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘Before this altar YOU should bow down in Jerusalem’?”’ Now, then, make a wager, please, with my lord the king of As·syr’i·a, and let me give you two thousand horses [to see] whether you are able, on your part, to put riders upon them. How, then, could you turn back the face of one governor of the smallest servants of my lord, while you, for your part, put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Now is it without authorization from Jehovah that I have come up against this place to bring it to ruin? Jehovah himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and you must bring it to ruin.’”

At this E·li’a·kim the son of Hil·ki’ah and Sheb’nah and Jo’ah said to Rab’sha·keh: “Speak with your servants, please, in the Syrian language, for we can listen; and do not speak with us in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.” But Rab’sha·keh said to them: “Is it to your lord and to you that my lord has sent me to speak these words? Is it not to the men sitting upon the wall, that they may eat their own excrement and drink their own urine with YOU men?”

And Rab’sha·keh continued to stand and call out in a loud voice in the Jews’ language; and he went on to speak and say: “HEAR the word of the great king, the king of As·syr’i·a. This is what the king has said, ‘Do not let Hez·e·ki’ah deceive YOU people, for he is not able to deliver YOU out of my hand. And do not let Hez·e·ki’ah cause YOU to trust in Jehovah, saying: “Without fail Jehovah will deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of As·syr’i·a.” Do not listen to Hez·e·ki’ah; for this is what the king of As·syr’i·a has said: “Make a capitulation to me, and come out to me, and eat each one from his own vine and each one from his own fig tree and drink each one the water of his own cistern, until I come and I actually take YOU to a land like YOUR own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil-olive trees and honey; and keep living that YOU may not die. And do not listen to Hez·e·ki’ah, for he allures YOU, saying, ‘Jehovah himself will deliver us.’ Have the gods of the nations at all delivered each one his own land out of the hand of the king of As·syr’i·a? Where are the gods of Ha’math and Ar’pad? Where are the gods of Seph·ar·va’im, He’na and Iv’vah? Have they delivered Sa·mar’i·a out of my hand? Who are there among all the gods of the lands that have delivered their land out of my hand, so that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?”’”

And the people kept silent and did not answer him a word, for the commandment of the king was, saying: “YOU must not answer him.” But E·li’a·kim the son of Hil·ki’ah, who was over the household, and Sheb’nah the secretary and Jo’ah the son of A’saph the recorder came to Hez·e·ki’ah with their garments ripped apart and told him the words of Rab’sha·keh.

And it came about that as soon as King Hez·e·ki’ah heard, he immediately ripped his garments apart and covered himself with sackcloth and came into the house of Jehovah. Further, he sent E·li’a·kim, who was over the household, and Sheb’nah the secretary and the older men of the priests covered with sackcloth to Isaiah the prophet the son of A’moz. And they proceeded to say to him: “This is what Hez·e·ki’ah has said, ‘This day is a day of distress and of rebuke and of scornful insolence; for the sons have come as far as the womb’s mouth, and there is no power to give birth. Perhaps Jehovah your God will hear all the words of Rab’sha·keh, whom the king of As·syr’i·a his lord sent to taunt the living God, and he will actually call him to account for the words that Jehovah your God has heard. And you must lift up prayer in behalf of the remnant that are to be found.’”

So the servants of King Hez·e·ki’ah came in to Isaiah. Then Isaiah said to them: “This is what YOU should say to YOUR lord, ‘This is what Jehovah has said: “Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard with which the attendants of the king of As·syr’i·a spoke abusively of me. Here I am putting a spirit in him, and he must hear a report and return to his own land; and I shall certainly cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”’”

After that Rab’sha·keh returned and found the king of As·syr’i·a fighting against Lib’nah; for he had heard that he had pulled away from La’chish. He heard it said respecting Tir·ha’kah the king of E·thi·o’pi·a: “Here he has come out to fight against you.” Therefore he sent messengers again to Hez·e·ki’ah, saying: “This is what YOU men should say to Hez·e·ki’ah the king of Judah, ‘Do not let your God in whom you are trusting deceive you, saying: “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of As·syr’i·a.” Look! You yourself have heard what the kings of As·syr’i·a did to all the lands by devoting them to destruction; and will you yourself be delivered? Have the gods of the nations that my forefathers brought to ruin delivered them, even Go’zan and Ha’ran and Re’zeph and the sons of E’den that were in Tel-as’sar? Where is he—the king of Ha’math and the king of Ar’pad and the king of the cities of Seph·ar·va’im, He’na and Iv’vah?’”

Then Hez·e·ki’ah took the letters out of the hand of the messengers and read them, after which Hez·e·ki’ah went up to the house of Jehovah and spread it out before Jehovah. And Hez·e·ki’ah began to pray before Jehovah and say: “O Jehovah the God of Israel, sitting upon the cherubs, you alone are the [true] God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You yourself have made the heavens and the earth. Incline your ear, O Jehovah, and hear. Open your eyes, O Jehovah, and see, and hear the words of Sen·nach’er·ib that he has sent to taunt the living God. It is a fact, O Jehovah, the kings of As·syr’i·a have devastated the nations and their land. And they have consigned their gods to the fire, because they were no gods, but the workmanship of man’s hands, wood and stone; so that they destroyed them. And now, O Jehovah our God, save us, please, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Jehovah, are God alone.”

And Isaiah the son of A’moz proceeded to send to Hez·e·ki’ah, saying: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel has said, ‘The prayer that you have made to me concerning Sen·nach’er·ib the king of As·syr’i·a I have heard. This is the word that Jehovah has spoken against him:

“The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you, she has held you in derision. Behind you the daughter of Jerusalem has wagged her head.

Whom have you taunted and spoken of abusively? And against whom have you lifted up your voice And do you raise your eyes on high? It is against the Holy One of Israel!

By means of your messengers you have taunted Jehovah and you say, ‘With the multitude of my war chariots I myself —I shall certainly ascend the height of mountainous regions, The remotest parts of Leb’a·non; And I shall cut down its lofty cedars, its choice juniper trees. And I will enter its final lodging place, the forest of its orchard.

I myself shall certainly dig and drink strange waters, And I shall dry up with the soles of my feet all the Nile canals of Egypt.’

Have you not heard? From remote times it is what I will do. From bygone days I have even formed it. Now I will bring it in. And you will serve to make fortified cities desolate as piles of ruins.

And their inhabitants will be feeble-handed; They will simply be terrified and will be ashamed. They must become as vegetation of the field and green tender grass, Grass of the roofs, when there is a scorching before the east wind.

And your sitting quiet and your going out and your coming in I well know, And your exciting yourself against me,

Because your exciting yourself against me and your roaring have come up into my ears. And I shall certainly put my hook in your nose and my bridle between your lips, And I shall indeed lead you back by the way by which you have come.”

“‘And this will be the sign for you: There will be an eating this year of the growth from spilled kernels, and in the second year grain that shoots up of itself; but in the third year sow seed, you people, and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruitage. And those who escape of the house of Judah, those who are left, will certainly take root downward and produce fruitage upward. For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go forth, and those who escape from Mount Zion. The very zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.

“‘That is why this is what Jehovah has said concerning the king of As·syr’i·a: “He will not come into this city nor will he shoot an arrow there nor confront it with a shield nor cast up a siege rampart against it. By the way by which he proceeded to come, he will return, and into this city he will not come, is the utterance of Jehovah. And I shall certainly defend this city to save it for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant.”’”

And it came about on that night that the angel of Jehovah proceeded to go out and strike down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the As·syr’i·ans. When people rose up early in the morning, why, there all of them were dead carcasses. Therefore Sen·nach’er·ib the king of As·syr’i·a pulled away and went and returned, and he took up dwelling in Nin’e·veh. And it came about that as he was bowing down at the house of Nis’roch his god, A·dram’me·lech and Shar·e’zer, his sons, themselves struck him down with the sword, and they themselves escaped to the land of Ar’a·rat. And E’sar-had’don his son began to reign in place of him.”

-2 Kings 15:1-7;32-35 & 16-19, NWT

Finally Jehovah Plagued The King, And He Continued To Be A Leper