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Ask a QuestionAsa conducted himself well before God, reviving the ways of his ancestor David. He cleaned house: He got rid of the sacred prostitutes and threw out all the idols his predecessors had made. Asa spared nothing and no one; he went so far as to remove Queen Maacah from her position because she had built a shockingly obscene memorial to the whore goddess Asherah. Asa tore it down and burned it up in the Kidron Valley. Unfortunately, he didn't get rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines. But he was well-intentioned - his heart was in the right place, in tune with God. All the gold and silver vessels and artifacts that he and his father had consecrated for holy use he installed in The Temple.
Elisha entered the house and found the boy stretched out on the bed dead. He went into the room and locked the door - just the two of them in the room - and prayed to God. He then got into bed with the boy and covered him with his body, mouth on mouth, eyes on eyes, hands on hands. As he was stretched out over him like that, the boy's body became warm. Elisha got up and paced back and forth in the room. Then he went back and stretched himself upon the boy again. The boy started sneezing - seven times he sneezed! - and opened his eyes.
Beriah and Shema were family chiefs who lived at Aijalon. They drove out the citizens of Gath. Their brothers were Shashak and Jeremoth. The sons of Beriah were Zebadiah, Arad, Eder, Michael, Ishpah, and Joha. The sons of Elpaal were Zebadiah, Meshullam, Hizki, Heber, Ishmerai, Izliah, and Jobab. The sons of Shimei were Jakim, Zicri, Zabdi, Elienai, Zillethai, Eliel, Adaiah, Beraiah, and Shimrath. The sons of Shashak were Ishpan, Eber, Eliel, Abdon, Zicri, Hanan, Hananiah, Elam, Anthothijah, Iphdeiah, and Penuel. The sons of Jeroham were Shamsherai, Shehariah, Athaliah, Jaareshiah, Elijah, and Zicri. These were the chiefs of the families as listed in their family tree. They lived in Jerusalem.
Preparations were complete for the service of worship; the priests took up their positions and the Levites were at their posts as instructed by the king. They killed the Passover lambs, and while the priests sprinkled the blood from the lambs, the Levites skinned them out. Then they set aside the Whole-Burnt-Offering for presentation to the family groupings of the people so that each group could offer it to God following the instructions in the Book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle. They roasted the Passover lamb according to the instructions and boiled the consecrated offerings in pots and kettles and pans and promptly served the people.
From the time King Artaxerxes appointed me as their governor in the land of Judah - from the twentieth to the thirty-second year of his reign, twelve years - neither I nor my brothers used the governor's food allowance. Governors who had preceded me had oppressed the people by taxing them forty shekels of silver (about a pound) a day for food and wine while their underlings bullied the people unmercifully. But out of fear of God I did none of that. I had work to do; I worked on this wall. All my men were on the job to do the work. We didn't have time to line our own pockets.
"Human life is a struggle, isn't it? It's a life sentence to hard labor. Like field hands longing for quitting time and working stiffs with nothing to hope for but payday, I'm given a life that meanders and goes nowhere - months of aimlessness, nights of misery! I go to bed and think, 'How long till I can get up?' I toss and turn as the night drags on - and I'm fed up! I'm covered with maggots and scabs. My skin gets scaly and hard, then oozes with pus. My days come and go swifter than the click of knitting needles, and then the yarn runs out - an unfinished life!
"But you never told me about this part. I should have known that there was more to it - That if I so much as missed a step, you'd notice and pounce, wouldn't let me get by with a thing. If I'm truly guilty, I'm doomed. But if I'm innocent, it's no better - I'm still doomed. My belly is full of bitterness. I'm up to my ears in a swamp of affliction. I try to make the best of it, try to brave it out, but you're too much for me, relentless, like a lion on the prowl. You line up fresh witnesses against me. You compound your anger and pile on the grief and pain!
With your very own hands you formed me; now breathe your wisdom over me so I can understand you. When they see me waiting, expecting your Word, those who fear you will take heart and be glad. I can see now, God, that your decisions are right; your testing has taught me what's true and right. Oh, love me - and right now! - hold me tight! just the way you promised. Now comfort me so I can live, really live; your revelation is the tune I dance to. Let the fast-talking tricksters be exposed as frauds; they tried to sell me a bill of goods, but I kept my mind fixed on your counsel. Let those who fear you turn to me for evidence of your wise guidance. And let me live whole and holy, soul and body, so I can always walk with my head held high.
"Then you'll see that your precious life insurance policy wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Your careful precautions against death were a pack of illusions and lies. When the disaster happens, you'll be crushed by it. Every time disaster comes, you'll be in on it - disaster in the morning, disaster at night." Every report of disaster will send you cowering in terror. There will be no place where you can rest, nothing to hide under. God will rise to full stature, raging as he did long ago on Mount Perazim And in the valley of Gibeon against the Philistines. But this time it's against you. Hard to believe, but true. Not what you'd expect, but it's coming. Sober up, friends, and don't scoff. Scoffing will just make it worse. I've heard the orders issued for destruction, orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies - ending up in an international disaster.
God's Message: "But just as one bad apple doesn't ruin the whole bushel, there are still plenty of good apples left. So I'll preserve those in Israel who obey me. I won't destroy the whole nation. I'll bring out my true children from Jacob and the heirs of my mountains from Judah. My chosen will inherit the land, my servants will move in. The lush valley of Sharon in the west will be a pasture for flocks, And in the east, the valley of Achor, a place for herds to graze. These will be for the people who bothered to reach out to me, who wanted me in their lives, who actually bothered to look for me.
You are right, O God, and you set things right. I can't argue with that. But I do have some questions: Why do bad people have it so good? Why do con artists make it big? You planted them and they put down roots. They flourished and produced fruit. They talk as if they're old friends with you, but they couldn't care less about you. Meanwhile, you know me inside and out. You don't let me get by with a thing! Make them pay for the way they live, pay with their lives, like sheep marked for slaughter. How long do we have to put up with this - the country depressed, the farms in ruin - And all because of wickedness, these wicked lives? Even animals and birds are dying off Because they'll have nothing to do with God and think God has nothing to do with them.
Now for what God says regarding the lying prophets: "Can you believe it? A country teeming with adulterers! faithless, promiscuous idolater-adulterers! They're a curse on the land. The land's a wasteland. Their unfaithfulness is turning the country into a cesspool, Prophets and priests devoted to desecration. They have nothing to do with me as their God. My very own Temple, mind you - mud-spattered with their crimes." God's Decree. "But they won't get by with it. They'll find themselves on a slippery slope, Careening into the darkness, somersaulting into the pitch-black dark. I'll make them pay for their crimes. It will be the Year of Doom." God's Decree.
Jeremiah assured him, "They won't get hold of you. Listen, please. Listen to God's voice. I'm telling you this for your own good so that you'll live. But if you refuse to turn yourself over, this is what God has shown me will happen: Picture this in your mind - all the women still left in the palace of the king of Judah, led out to the officers of the king of Babylon, and as they're led out they are saying: "'They lied to you and did you in, those so-called friends of yours; And now you're stuck, about knee-deep in mud, and your "friends," where are they now?'
"Then address them: 'This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: Be on the lookout! I'm sending for and bringing Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon - my servant, mind you! - and he'll set up his throne on these very stones that I've had buried here and he'll spread out his canopy over them. He'll come and absolutely smash Egypt, sending each to his assigned fate: death, exile, slaughter. He'll burn down the temples of Egypt's gods. He'll either burn up the gods or haul them off as booty. Like a shepherd who picks lice from his robes, he'll pick Egypt clean. And then he'll walk away without a hand being laid on him. He'll shatter the sacred obelisks at Egypt's House of the Sun and make a huge bonfire of the temples of Egypt's gods.'"
"'And now this is what God, the Master, says: "'I'll smash all the no-god idols; I'll topple all those huge statues in Memphis. The prince of Egypt will be gone for good, and in his place I'll put fear - fear throughout Egypt! I'll demolish Pathros, burn Zoan to the ground, and punish Thebes, Pour my wrath on Pelusium, Egypt's fort, and knock Thebes off its proud pedestal. I'll set Egypt on fire: Pelusium will writhe in pain, Thebes blown away, Memphis raped. The young warriors of On and Pi-beseth will be killed and the cities exiled. A dark day for Tahpanhes when I shatter Egypt, When I break Egyptian power and put an end to her arrogant oppression! She'll disappear in a cloud of dust, her cities hauled off as exiles. That's how I'll punish Egypt, and that's how she'll realize that I am God.'"
"But I wanted to know more. I was curious about the fourth animal, the one so different from the others, the hideous monster with the iron teeth and the bronze claws, gulping down what it ripped to pieces and trampling the leftovers into the dirt. And I wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and the other horn that sprouted up while three of the original horns were removed. This new horn had eyes and a big mouth and spoke arrogantly, dominating the other horns. I watched as this horn was making war on God's holy people and getting the best of them. But then The Old One intervened and decided things in favor of the people of the High God. In the end, God's holy people took over the kingdom.
"At that time" - this is God's Message still - "you'll address me, 'Dear husband!' Never again will you address me, 'My slave-master!' I'll wash your mouth out with soap, get rid of all the dirty false-god names, not so much as a whisper of those names again. At the same time I'll make a peace treaty between you and wild animals and birds and reptiles, And get rid of all weapons of war. Think of it! Safe from beasts and bullies! And then I'll marry you for good - forever! I'll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness. Yes, I'll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go. You'll know me, God, for who I really am.
"What do you mean, 'good people'! You're the enemy of my people! You rob unsuspecting people out for an evening stroll. You take their coats off their backs like soldiers who plunder the defenseless. You drive the women of my people out of their ample homes. You make victims of the children and leave them vulnerable to violence and vice. Get out of here, the lot of you. You can't take it easy here! You've polluted this place, and now you're polluted - ruined! If someone showed up with a good smile and glib tongue and told lies from morning to night - 'I'll preach sermons that will tell you how you can get anything you want from God: More money, the best wines...you name it' - you'd hire him on the spot as your preacher!
But Jesus put it right back on them. "Why do you use your rules to play fast and loose with God's commands? God clearly says, 'Respect your father and mother,' and, 'Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.' But you weasel around that by saying, 'Whoever wants to, can say to father and mother, What I owed to you I've given to God.' That can hardly be called respecting a parent. You cancel God's command by your rules. Frauds! Isaiah's prophecy of you hit the bull's-eye: These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn't in it. They act like they're worshiping me, but they don't mean it. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy."
He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written, God's Spirit is on me; he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, "This is God's year to act!" He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, "You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."