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14 April 2012
In the radiance of the Lord make your way to light - Extracted from the prophet Baruch, Chapter 3:9-15, 32 to Chapter 4:4
9 Listen, Israel, to commands that bring life; hear, and learn what knowledge means.
10 Why, Israel, why are you in the country of your enemies, growing older and older in an alien land,
11 defiling yourselves with the dead, reckoned with those who go to Sheol?
12 It is because you have forsaken the fountain of wisdom!
13 Had you walked in the way of God, you would be living in peace for ever.
14 Learn where knowledge is, where strength, where understanding, and so learn where length of days is, where life, where the light of the eyes and where peace.
15 But who has found out where she (hereinafter referred to “Wisdom”) lives, who has entered her treasure house?
32 But the One who knows all discovers her, he has grasped her with his own intellect, he has set the earth firm for evermore and filled it with four-footed beasts,
33 he sends the light - and it goes, he recalls it - and trembling it obeys;
34 the stars shine joyfully at their posts;
35 when he calls them, they answer, 'Here we are'; they shine to delight their Creator.
36 It is he who is our God, no other can compare with him.
37 He has uncovered the whole way of knowledge and shown it to his servant Jacob, to Israel his well-beloved;
38 only then did she appear on earth and live among human beings.
1 She is the book of God's commandments, the Law that stands for ever; those who keep her shall live, those who desert her shall die.
2 Turn back, Jacob, seize her, in her radiance make your way to light:
3 do not yield your glory to another, your privilege to a people not your own.
4 Israel, blessed are we: what pleases God has been revealed to us! |
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I shall pour clean water over you, and I shall give you a new heart - Extracted from the prophet Ezekiel, Chapter 36:
16 The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows,
17 'Son of man, the members of the House of Israel used to live in their own territory, but they defiled it by their conduct and actions; to me their conduct was as unclean as a woman's menstruation.
18 I then vented my fury on them because of the blood they shed in the country and the foul idols with which they defiled it.
19 I scattered them among the nations and they were dispersed throughout the countries. I sentenced them as their conduct and actions deserved.
20 They have profaned my holy name among the nations where they have gone, so that people say of them, "These are the people of Yahweh; they have been exiled from his land."
21 But I have been concerned about my holy name, which the House of Israel has profaned among the nations where they have gone.
22 And so, say to the House of Israel, "The Lord Yahweh says this: I am acting not for your sake, House of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone.
23 I am going to display the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am Yahweh - declares the Lord Yahweh - when in you I display my holiness before their eyes.
24 For I shall take you from among the nations and gather you back from all the countries, and bring you home to your own country.
25 I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed; I shall cleanse you of all your filth and of all your foul idols.
26 I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead.
27 I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws, and respect and practice my judgments.
28 You will live in the country which I gave your ancestors. You will be my people and I shall be your God. |
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Get rid of the old yeast, make yourselves into a completely new batch of Bread -Extracted from the 1st letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 5:
6b Do you not realize that only a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?
7 Throw out the old yeast so that you can be the fresh dough, unleavened as you are. For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ;
8 let us keep the feast, then, with none of the old yeast and no leavening of evil and wickedness, but only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 In my letter, I wrote to you that you should have nothing to do with people living immoral lives.
10 I was not including everybody in this present world who is sexually immoral, or everybody who is greedy, or dishonest or worships false gods - that would mean you would have to cut yourselves off completely from the world.
11 In fact what I meant was that you were not to have anything to do with anyone going by the name of brother who is sexually immoral, or is greedy, or worships false gods, or is a slanderer or a drunkard or dishonest; never even have a meal with anybody of that kind.
12 It is no concern of mine to judge outsiders. It is for you to judge those who are inside, is it not?
13 But outsiders are for God to judge. You must banish this evil-doer from among you. |
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The prophecy that Jesus Christ would come like a refiner’s fire around 400 B.C. -Extracted from the prophet Malachi, Chapter 3:
1 'Look, I shall send my messenger (hereinafter referred to “John the Baptist”) to clear a way before me. And suddenly the Lord (hereinafter referred to “Jesus Christ”) whom you seek will come to his Temple; yes, the angel of the covenant, for whom you long, is on his way, says Yahweh Sabaoth.
2 Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire, like fullers' alkali.
3 He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they can make the offering to Yahweh with uprightness.
4 The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be acceptable to Yahweh as in former days, as in the years of old.
5 I am coming to put you on trial and I shall be a ready witness against sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, and against those who oppress the wage-earner, the widow and the orphan, and who rob the foreigner of his rights and do not respect me, says Yahweh Sabaoth.
14 April 2012
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