The Alliance That Wasn't His
Judah runs to Egypt without asking the Father, and pays for help that cannot help. They tell the prophets to say pleasant things. The way home was quietness and trust, which they refused. Still the Father waits to be gracious, and a voice says, walk here.
30 1"Woe to the rebellious children," declares our Father, "who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who forge an alliance, but not of my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; a a v1 Our Father names his own people 'rebellious children' — sons and daughters who belong to him, not strangers. His heartbreak in this chapter is a Father's heartbreak. 2who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my counsel, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt. 3Therefore the protection of Pharaoh will become your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation. 4For though Pharaoh's officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes, 5everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot help them, that brings no aid and no profit, but only shame and disgrace."
6"An oracle concerning the beasts of the Negev. Through a land of trouble and anguish, where the lioness and the lion prowl, and the viper and the darting serpent lurk, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who cannot help them. 7Egypt's help is worthless and empty; therefore I call her "the Harmless Monster."
Write It as a Witness
8"Now go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come, as a witness forever. 9For they are a rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of our Father. 10They say to the seers, "Do not see," and to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us what is right; tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
11Leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.
12Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel, our Father, says: Because you reject this word and trust in oppression and deceit and lean on them, 13therefore this guilt will be to you like a breach about to fall, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse comes suddenly, in an instant. 14Its breaking is like the smashing of a potter's jar, shattered so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found to scoop fire from the hearth or to dip water from the cistern.
15For this is what the Sovereign Father, the Holy One of Israel, said: In returning and rest you will be saved; in quietness and trust will be your strength. But you were unwilling, 16and you said, "No! We will flee on horses"—therefore you will flee; and, "We will ride on swift steeds"—therefore your pursuers will be swift.
171,000 will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a signal on a hill.
18Therefore our Father waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he rises to show you mercy. For he is a Father of justice; blessed are all who wait for him. b b v18 Even after his children's rebellion, our Father does not stand at a distance — he waits, leaning toward them, for any sign that they will turn home. 19A people will live in Zion, in Jerusalem; you will weep no more. At the sound of your cry he will surely be gracious; when he hears, he answers you. 20Though our Father gives you the bread of adversity and water of suffering, your Teacher will no longer hide, but your eyes will see your Teacher.
21Your ears will hear a word behind you: "This is the way; walk in it," when you turn right or left.
22Then you will desecrate your silver-plated carved images and gold-plated metal idols. You will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say, "Get out!"
23He will send rain for the seed you sow, and bread from the land's produce, rich and plentiful. That day your livestock will graze in broad pastures. 24The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, winnowed with shovel and fork. 25On every high mountain and hill will run streams of water, on the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall. 26The moon's light will be like the sun's, and the sun's light seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, when our Father binds up his people's brokenness and heals the wound he inflicted. 27Look—the name of our Father comes from afar, burning with his anger, in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire. 28His breath is like an overflowing torrent that reaches up to the neck, to sift the nations in the sieve of destruction and to put a bridle on the jaws of the peoples that leads them astray. 29You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one marches to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of our Father, to the Rock of Israel. 30And our Father will make his majestic voice heard and reveal the descending blow of his arm, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with cloudburst and storm and hailstones. 31For at the voice of our Father the Assyrians will be shattered, when he strikes them with his rod. 32And every stroke of the punishing rod that our Father lays on them will come with tambourines and lyres, as he fights against them with the blows of his brandished arm. 33For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, it is made ready for the king, its pyre deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of our Father, like a stream of sulfur, sets it ablaze.
