Author: wordofgod

Here, again, are the stories, the background, from the mainstream news media, that detail the Biden Burisma corruption. This is the real corruption the media and the congressional Democrats are trying to cover up. They are in fact bringing it into the light. It began when then vice president Joe Biden was sent to Ukraine to get them to increase gas output. Biden offered US aid (the billion he later threatened to withhold) that would help Ukraine’s energy industry. This resulted in Hunter Biden (with no business or energy experience) being given a position (paying $50,000 a month) on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the energy companies that would benefit from the US aid.

Later, after a change in Ukraine Administration, Ukraine appointed a prosecutor to investigate what was an obvious payoff to Biden, obviously connect the US aid he was in charge of and giving them. We know because Biden bragged on video, he then threatened to withhold aid (a billion dollars) if the prosecutor wasn’t fired immediately. He (the prosecutor) was fired, and the investigation stopped.

This is the actual corruption involving US aid, a payoff in return for it, the admitted interference in the investigation, and the forced firing of the prosecutor. This is what Trump, Rudy, and we the people who elected Trump president, want to be investigated, and of which we want the Ukrainians to resume their investigation. It is corruption at the highest levels of the Obama Administration, perpetrated and admitted to by the then Vice President.

WHISTLEBLOWER is Democrat and CIA Operative Eric CIAramella (ramah, meaning delusion or betrayer – his seems to be a code name). Here is the meaning of his full name: Eric, everlasting ruler, as in the permanent government, the “Deep State,” and CIA (ramah) Assassin, or one who beguiles or deceives.

Here is the definition of ramah from the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: #7411: ramah (pronounced raw-maw’) a primitive root; to hurl; specifically, to shoot; figuratively, to delude or betray (as if causing to fall):–beguile, betray, (bow-)man, carry, deceive, throw.

Here are Eric CIAramella’s credentials:
He worked with another DNC Operative, Alexandra Chalupa, in creating the Trump-Russia collusion HOAX.
He was fired in 2017 from his NSC posting at the White House, for leaking, and was returned to the CIA where he currently works.
He is a registered Democrat who served in the Obama Administration. There he worked directly for VP Joe Biden, James Clapper (Director of Nationals Intelligence from 2007 to 2017), and John Brennan (Director of the CIA from 2013 to 2017).

This man’s name (Eric CIAramella) is either made up or Divine engineering, which we see is a constant mark of God’s work, names engineered to reflect the character and work of the one it is assigned to. Just as is the name Trump, no matter what card they play against him, even cards that normally beat others, the Trump card always wins.

Friends, these things are merely evidence of what we know, by faith, to be true: we are all acting out a script, written, produced, and directed by the LORD God Almighty Himself. I have read through to the end, and you won’t believe (haven’t believed) what is coming until you see it.

2 Corinthians 1
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught:
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the LORD of glory.
9 But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
10 But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who has known the mind of the LORD, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.

When verse 9 above says it hasn’t entered into the mind of men, what God has prepared for those who love Him, it is quoting from Isaiah 64, which is reciting what we are seeing. The passage appears while describing those seeing what is occurring and not understanding what they are actually experiencing. It describes this as remaining among the dead, among those whose minds are intellectually unprepared to receive what they have unknowingly found.

Isaiah 63
15 Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of your holiness and of your glory: where is your zeal and your strength, the sounding of your bowels and of your mercies toward me? are they restrained?
16 Doubtless you are our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: you, O LORD, are our father, our redeemer; your name is from everlasting.
17 O LORD, why have you made us to err from your ways, and hardened our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance.
18 The people of your holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.
19 We are your: you never barest rule over them; they were not called by your name.

Isaiah 64
1 Oh that you would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might flow down at your presence,
2 As when the melting fire burns, the fire causes the waters to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at your presence!
3 When you did terrible things which we looked not for, you came down, the mountains flowed down at your presence.
4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither has the eye seen, O God, beside you, what he has prepared for him that waits for him.
5 You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness, those that remember you in your ways: behold, you are wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
7 And there is none that calls upon your name, that stirs up himself to take hold of you: for you have hid your face from us, and have consumed us, because of our iniquities.
8 But now, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay, and you our potter; and we all are the work of your hand.
9 Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech you, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.
12 Will you refrain yourself for these things, O LORD? will you hold your peace, and afflict us very sore?

Isaiah 65
1 I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.
2 I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walked in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;
3 A people that provokes me to anger continually to my face; that sacrifices in gardens, and burn incense upon altars of brick;
4 Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments [among the tomb among the dead], which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;
5 Which say, Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier than you. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burns all the day.
6 Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom,
7 Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, says the LORD, which have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom.
8 Thus says the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all.
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
10 And Sharon [what is plain sight] shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor [the place that been troubled] a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me.
11 But you are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number.
12 Therefore will I number you to the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.
13 Therefore thus says the LORD God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed:
14 Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.
15 And you shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the LORD God shall slay you, and call his servants by another name:
16 That he who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.
17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
18 But be you glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that has not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.
24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

Isaiah 66
1 Thus says the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that you build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
2 For all those things has mine hand made, and all those things have been, says the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and tremble at my word.
3 He that kills an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrifices a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offers an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood; he that burns incense, as if he blessed an idol [the world will see all they though, believed, isn’t real]. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations [the ideas with which they replaced the true God].
4 I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spoke, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.
5 Hear the word of the LORD, you that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.
6 A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the LORD that renders recompense to his enemies.
7 Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.
8 Who has heard such a thing? who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? says the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? says your God.
10 Rejoice you with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all you that mourn for her:
11 That you may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that you may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.
12 For thus says the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall you suck, you shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees.
13 As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
14 And when you see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies.
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, says the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

Paul, in ending 1 Corinthians 2, in verse 16, before telling of the seeing these things by the Spirit of the LORD (the Comforter – the Paraclete), quoted from Isaiah 40:13. The Chapter begins with telling of the coming of the Comfort, which is then defined in of the quote and surrounding verses. These speak of he mind of the LORD revealed, in it revealing Himself to those who by the same Spirit understand what they are seeing and experiencing.

Here the LORD’s words, from His mouth to you, and in hearing see the Father:

John 14
8 Philip said unto him, LORD, show us the Father, and it suffices us [if seeing the Father is what perfects us, show us the Father – which is the end we all seek].
9 Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? he that has seen me has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father?
10 Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
12 Truly, truly, I say unto you, He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
13 And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
15 If you love me, keep my commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. [Speaking of the Paraclete, the Comforter, the one who comes beside, by ignorance unseen, to lead into all truth, which reveals the Father who is actually speaking, who was before only an unknown Spirit, in those who are also then seen as His children, by having His mind and His name.]
19 Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you see me: because I live, you shall live also.
20 At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
21 He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22 Judas said unto him, not Iscariot, LORD, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep [guard and preserve it from corrupt, the pollution by men’s additions] my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him [we will live in them].
24 He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

The LORD is alive in me, doing His work, revealing Himself to as many as will receive Him, and with me become His children. Thus says the LORD:

Isaiah 40
1 Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God.
2 Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.
6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7 The grass withers, the flower fades: because the spirit of the LORD blows upon it: surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
9 O Zion, that brings good tidings, get you up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that brings good tidings, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10 Behold, the LORD God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor has taught him?
14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
18 To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare unto him?
19 The workman [those who make images they put in God’s place] melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and caste silver chains.
20 He that is so impoverished that he has no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.
21 Have you not known? have you not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in:
23 That brings the princes to nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as vanity.
24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
25 To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: he calls them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one fails.
27 Why say you, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
28 Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29 He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength [remember, Job 26:2 thru 4, from the previous post].
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

John 14
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
28 You have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, you might believe.
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me. [The princes, the gods of this world, who will blind and have blinded the minds of all the world, keeping them from seeing the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit – who you now see]
31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. [And here we are.]

Psalms 72
1 Give the king your judgments, O God, and your righteousness unto the king’s son.
2 He shall judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with judgment.
3 The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.
4 He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.
5 They shall fear you as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.
6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.
7 In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endures.
8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
9 They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.
10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.
12 For he shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also, and him that has no helper.
13 He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.
14 He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
15 And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.
16 There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.
17 His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.
18 Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only does wondrous things.
19 And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.
20 The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name The LORD [Jehovah].

The title is Jeremiah 16:21, which we saw in the previous post, is the LORD speaking of when he defeats the princes and kings of the earth as He reveals Himself in His people. This is, we are, His “hand” and “might,” Jehovah, The LORD, removing the veil and causing all to know it is Him, alive in us doing the work.

This “might,” from the Hebrew word gbuwrah, meaning the strength and power to get the victory, is spoken of by Job, in Job 26:14, as the “power” of the LORD’s thunder. As we know, thunder is the sound of the light, the voice of understanding. It says this is His way, which men don’t understand, therefore little is heard about His mighty works. In the verse before, we are told of His hand forming the “crooked serpent,” which is the ancient river, of lies, that becomes the snare in which the wicked trap themselves.

Job 26
1 But Job answered and said [speaking of what only God can do, and does in showing Himself],
2 How have you helped him that is without power? how save you the arm that has no strength?
3 How have you counseled him that has no wisdom? and how have you plentifully declared the thing as it is?
4 To whom have you uttered words? and whose spirit came from you?
5 Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.
6 Hell is naked before him, and destruction has no covering.
7 He stretches out the north over the empty place, and hangs the earth upon nothing.
8 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds [He hold His word in heaven]; and the cloud is not rent under them.
9 He holds back the face [the obvious presence] of his throne, and spreads his cloud upon it.
10 He has compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.
11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.
12 He divides the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smites through the proud.
13 By his spirit he has garnished the heavens; his hand has formed the crooked serpent.
14 Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power [gbuwrah] who can understand?

This might is also spoken of by Deborah, in Judges 5:31, when telling of those who love the LORD, shining forth like the sun when it goes forth in its “might,” which is speaking of its light (understanding). Earlier in verse 20, we are told of the stars in their course fighting against Sisera, meaning those in battle array. These men, arrayed for battle, are swept away by the ancient river of Kishon. This is the same river spoken of by Job, here derived from the Hebrew word qowsh, meaning a snare, the trap of lies in which these men, as have many before them, catch themselves.

Judges 5
2 Praise you the LORD for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.
3 Hear, O you kings; give ear, O you princes; I, even I, will sing unto the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel.
4 LORD, when you went out of Seir [the high places {mountain} of Edom], when you marched out of the field of Edom [Esau, the enemies among us], the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water.
5 The mountains melted from before the LORD, even that Sinai [even His mountain, where thorns have risen up] from before the LORD God of Israel.
6 In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath [the days when Your sword {word} answered], in the days of Jael [the goats on Your mountain], the highways were unoccupied, and the travelers [wanderers, misleaders] walked through byways.
7 The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah [she who would systematically arrange, order and reestablish, the ways of God] arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.
8 They chose new gods; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?
9 My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless you the LORD.
10 Speak, you that ride on white asses, you that sit in judgment, and walk by the way.
11 They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel: then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.
12 Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song: arise, Barak [lightning], and lead your captivity captive, you son of Abinoam [with whom the Father is pleased].
13 Then he made him that remained have dominion over the nobles among the people: the LORD made me have dominion over the mighty.
14 Out of Ephraim [those upon who comes this second blessing] was there a root of them against Amalek [the children of Esau, the enemies among us]; after you, Benjamin [the son of God’s {power} right hand], among your people; out of Machir [the merchants] came down governors, and out of Zebulun [from the {LORD’s} dwelling place] they that handle the pen of the writer.
15 And the princes of Issachar [the LORD’s recompenses] were with Deborah; even Issachar [reward], and also Barak [lightning, understanding]: he was sent on foot into the valley [to the lowly]. For the divisions [right dividing the word of God] of Reuben [you will see the son] there were great thoughts of heart [great consideration given to the foundations of thought and reason].
16 Why [LORD] abode you among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleating of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.
17 Gilead [this mountain of testimony] abode beyond Jordan [was beyond, after, the rivers that carried all into death]: and why did Dan remain in ships [why does judgment remain separated from these waters]? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches [happiness wasn’t found because they remained separated from this word of God].
18 Zebulun and Naphtali [the dwelling places unknowingly wrestling with God] were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field [the earth].
19 The kings came and fought, then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach [merchants of deception] by the waters of Megiddo [by the waters, lies, they flowed to the masses, at Armageddon, the set time of this rendezvous]; they [the kings of the LORD] took no gain of money.
20 They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera [against those set in the battle array against God’s people].
21 The river of Kishon swept them away [their rivers of lies, became the trap in which they were caught], that ancient river, the river Kishon [the snare]. O my soul, you have trodden down strength.
22 Then were the horse-hoofs [their strength, the lies upon which they ride] broken by the means of the prancing [the pride and arrogance], the prancing [hubris] of their mighty ones.
23 Curse you Meroz [curse the bitterness of those who should be our allies], said the angel of the LORD, curse you bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty.
24 Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be [blessed are those who joined us when we rose up to the battle], blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
25 He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
26 She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera [those arrayed in the battle against God’s people], she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
27 At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
28 The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots? [waiting for the victory that will never come]
29 Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself,
30 Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two; to Sisera a prey of divers colors, a prey of divers colors of needlework, of divers colors of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?
31 So let all your enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goes forth in his might [gbuwrah]. And the land had rest forty years.

The name Deborah is said to mean bee, from words meaning the systematic ordering or arranging of speech. The bee is the source of the honey, which we know is used to tell of the taste of the word of God in the mouth of those who eat it. Jael, speaking of those who skillfully and carefully walk on the LORD’s mountain, is above spoken of as the one who brings milk and butter. She is also twice said to be “blessed above women.”

These are descriptions leading us to Isaiah 7 & 8 where the women is spoken of, the virgin (who is blessed among women) who brings forth the child who eats butter and honey, so he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. The butter and honey are then spoken of as a roll, written with a man’s pen concerning (the child named) Maher-shalal-hash-baz. This name, which means haste (to the) spoil (and) speed (to the) prey, is what is described in Judges 5:30 above.

These descriptions are of US, here and now: the woman who is the mother of many children the LORD has given to the child who is the LORD of lords and King of kings, and they together are Maher-shalal-hash-baz, the elect remnant.

Isaiah 7
1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz [the one who holds – possesses] the son of Jotham [what Jehovah had {in David} created perfect], the son of Uzziah [where Jehovah’s strength resides], king of Judah, that Rezin [a firm enemy] the king of Syria [those who exalt themselves above God], and Pekah [whose open eyes] the son of Remaliah [Jehovah deluded {ramah}], king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
2 And it was told the house of David [Judah], saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim [Israel]. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
3 Then said the LORD unto Isaiah [Jehovah’s salvation], Go forth now to meet Ahaz [the possessor of the throne], you, and Shearjashub [an {elect} remnant will return – see Isaiah 8:18 below] your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper [Most High] pool in the highway of the fuller’s [the {refiner’s} washer’s] field;
4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against you, saying,
6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal [who is pleasing to God]:
7 Thus says the LORD God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
8 For the head of Syria is Damascus [where God’s work has ceased], and the head of Damascus is Rezin [a firm enemy of God]; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim [God people {who are idol worshippers} in this latter time] is Samaria [the watch tower, where they see with eyes of delusion], and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.
10 Moreover the LORD spoke again unto Ahaz, saying,
11 Ask you a sign of the LORD your God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
13 And he said, Hear you now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?
14 Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God with us].
15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that you abhor [quwtz – same as “vex” in verse 6 above] shall be forsaken of both her kings [of Judah and Israel].
17 The LORD shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon your father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria [communists].
18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly [those who swarm over dung] that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt [the word of captivity], and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria [the sting of communism].
19 And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.
20 In the same day shall the LORD shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard [make bare {empty the treasury} through communism].
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;
22 And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.
23 And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns [when strangers, with strange ideas, rule].
24 With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
25 And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle. [This is referring to what is written of in Exodus 1:12, saying, “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved [quwtz] because of the children of Israel.”]

Isaiah 8
1 Moreover the LORD said unto me, Take you a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.
2 And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.
3 And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.
4 For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.
5 The LORD spoke also unto me again, saying,
6 Forasmuch as this people refuses the waters of Shiloah that go softly [the word of God that flowed under Zion, the foundation of Jerusalem, the ways of peace and security], and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son;
7 Now therefore, behold, the LORD brings up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria [the words, teaching and preaching, communism], and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks:
8 And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel [into this condition the LORD manifests His presence among us, to save those who receive Him].
9 Associate yourselves, O you people, and you shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all you of far countries: gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say you not, A confederacy [join not together with the deluded and the communists], to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear you their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify [separate yourselves to] the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait upon the LORD, that hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwells in mount Zion.
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? [Should they be looking] for the living to the dead?
20 [Or] To the law and to the testimony[?]: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light [understanding] in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness [ignorance], dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness [deeper ignorance].

Luke 1
28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, you that are highly favored, the LORD is with you: blessed are you among women.
29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary [you who’ve rebelled against the corrupt status quo]: for you have found favor with God.
31 And, behold, you shall conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus.
32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the LORD God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God.
36 And, behold, your cousin Elisabeth, she has also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.

The LORD speaks of this woman, Jael, who is blessed above women and brings forth the child, in Job 39:1 where the name (ya’el) is rendered “goat of the rock.” In verse 19 the LORD tells of the strength (gbuwrah – might) of His horse, which is referring us to Jeremiah 22:4, and the elect remnant who becomes His goodly horse in the battle (Zechariah 10:3).

Job 39
1 Know you the time when the wild goats of the rock [Jael] bring forth [her child]? or can you mark when the hinds do calve?
2 Can you number the months that they fulfill? or know you the time when they bring forth?
3 They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows.
4 Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto them.
5 Who has sent out the wild ass free? or who has loosed the bands of the wild ass [those I have called out of your houses and cities]?
6 Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings.
7 He scorns the multitude of the city, neither regards he the crying of the driver.
8 The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searches after every green thing.
9 Will the unicorn [rhinoceros – republicans] be willing to serve you, or abide by your crib?
10 Can you bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after you?
11 Will you trust him, because his strength is great? or will you leave your labor to him?
12 Will you believe him, that he will bring home your seed, and gather it into your barn?
13 Gave you the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?
14 Which leaves her eggs in the earth, and warms them in dust,
15 And forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them.
16 She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labor is in vain without fear;
17 Because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding.
18 What time she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and his rider.
19 Have you given the horse strength [gbuwrah]? have you clothed his neck with thunder?
20 Can you make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible.
21 He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength: he goes on to meet the armed men.
22 He mocks at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turns he back from the sword.
23 The quiver rattles against him, the glittering spear and the shield.
24 He swallows the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believes he that it is the sound of the trumpet.
25 He says among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
26 Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?
27 Does the eagle mount up at your command, and make her nest on high?
28 She dwells and abides on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place.
29 From thence she seeks the prey, and her eyes behold afar off.
30 Her young ones also suck up blood: and where the slain are, there is she.

Jeremiah 21
8 And unto this people you shall say, Thus says the LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.
9 He that abides in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goes out, and falls to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey.
10 For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, says the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.
11 And touching the house of the king of Judah, say, Hear you the word of the LORD;
12 O house of David, thus says the LORD; Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
13 Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, and rock of the plain, says the LORD; which say, Who shall come down against us? or who shall enter into our habitations?
14 But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof, and it shall devour all things round about it.

Jeremiah 22
1 Thus says the LORD; Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,
2 And say, Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, that sits upon the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people that enter in by these gates:
3 Thus says the LORD; Execute you judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.
4 For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.

Zechariah 9
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King comes unto you: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass [the ass set free – see Job 39:5 above].
10 And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem [the arrogant horses – see Judges 5:22 above], and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.
11 As for you also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent forth your prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.
12 Turn you to the strong hold, you prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto you;
13 When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and made you as the sword of a mighty man.
14 And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the LORD God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south.
15 The LORD of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar.
16 And the LORD their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land.
17 For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.

Zechariah 10
1 Ask you of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field.
2 For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.
3 Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats: for the LORD of hosts has visited his flock the house of Judah, and has made them as his goodly horse in the battle.
4 Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every oppressor [the governor] together.
5 And they shall be as mighty men, which tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because the LORD is with them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded.
6 And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the LORD their God, and will hear them.
7 And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the LORD.

Job 23
2 Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
3 Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!
4 I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
5 I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me.
6 Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.
7 There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge.
8 Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him:
9 On the left hand, where he does work, but I cannot behold him: he hides himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him:
10 But he knows the way that I take: when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
11 My foot has held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined.
12 Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
13 But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desires, even that he does.
14 For he performs the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him.
15 Therefore am I troubled at his presence: when I consider, I am afraid of him.
16 For God makes my heart soft, and the Almighty troubles me:
17 Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither has he covered the darkness from my face.

Job 24
1Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?

Psalms 145
1 I will extol you, my God, O king; and I will bless your name for ever and ever.
2 Every day will I bless you; and I will praise your name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.
4 One generation shall praise your works to another, and shall declare your mighty [gbuwrah] acts.
5 I will speak of the glorious honor of your majesty, and of your wondrous works.
6 And men shall speak of the might of your terrible acts: and I will declare your greatness.
7 They shall abundantly utter the memory of your great goodness, and shall sing of your righteousness.
8 The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.
9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
10 All your works shall praise you, O LORD; and your saints shall bless you.
11 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and talk of your power [gbuwrah];
12 To make known to the sons of men his mighty [gbuwrah] acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.
14 The LORD upholds all that fall, and raises up all those that be bowed down.
15 The eyes of all wait upon you; and you give them their meat in due season.
16 You open your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.
18 The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.
19 He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.
20 The LORD preserves all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy.
21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD: and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.

The word “plagues” is from the Greek word plege, and is here speaking of the final series of calamities that end Babylon. The title verse is Revelation 18:4, which is referring us to what is written, foretold in a pattern, in Isaiah 10 and Jeremiah 50. These chapters speak of the elect remnant being saved, called out from the places upon which the plagues are coming. (I think it may be time for the righteous to evacuate CA and NY. Separate from the communists and liars, the delusional leaders among us in church and state.)

(Again, it is necessary to have read the previous posts in order to see the full revelation in today’s message.)

Isaiah 10 tells of the Assyrian, the communists, as the ax in the LORD’s hand, sent against the trees, the glory of the forest, which represents the powerful among God’s people, conquered by the Assyrian. It likens his end to that of Midian, which we know is speaking of when Gideon, with an elect remnant, put them to flight and God’s people were then called to the join the battle in the final destruction, of Midian, her princes (Judges 7), and her kings (Judges 8 – remember princes and kings of Tyre, the false rock, and Ezekiel 28).

In Jeremiah 50 this pattern is seen in the destruction of Babylon.

The point that must be noted throughout today’s message is the decrees of the unrighteous, which are men prescribing the wrong remedy, which when followed cause the plagues that occur. These men are the false prophets and false teachers, the misleaders of our time, whose advice is disconnected from reality. In the church, they are those who continually tell God’s people to follow their ways and what to look for as signs of the LORD’s coming. The paradox is, they are the signs, and the consistent message throughout God’s word, is His coming is in men in whom He dwells and through whom He is speaking. Men’s minds, blinded by their ignorant teaching, the impurities that keep them from seeing what is veiled in flesh, fail to see what is right in front of them.

Isaiah 10
12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the LORD has performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.
13 For he says, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man:
14 And my hand has found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathers eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.
15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that hews therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shake it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.
16 Therefore shall the LORD, the LORD of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.
17 And the light [understanding] of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers [foreign ways of the princes and kings mixed with God’s people] in one day;
18 And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standard-bearer faints [they shall fall as a tree falls].
19 And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
22 For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption [the full end] decreed shall overflow with righteousness.
23 For the LORD God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.
24 Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts, O my people that dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite you with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against you, after the manner of Egypt.
25 For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.
26 And the LORD of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
27 And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off your shoulder, and his yoke from off your neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.

Daniel 9
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

Jeremiah 50
1 The word that the LORD spoke against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans [against men who use deception to manipulate and control {mislead} others] by Jeremiah the prophet.
2 Declare you among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.
3 For out of the north there comes up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
4 In those days, and in that time, says the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the LORD their God.
5 They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.
6 My people has been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting-place.
7 All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers.
8 Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he goats before the flocks.
9 For, lo, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man; none shall return in vain.
10 And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall be satisfied, says the LORD.
11 Because you were glad, because you rejoiced, O you destroyers of mine heritage, because you are grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls;
12 Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed: behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
13 Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goes by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.
14 Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all you that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she has sinned against the LORD.
15 Shout against her round about: she has given her hand: her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for it is the vengeance of the LORD: take vengeance upon her; as she has done, do unto her.
16 Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handles the sickle in the time of harvest: for fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people, and they shall flee every one to his own land.
17 Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria has devoured him; and last this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.
18 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria.
19 And I will bring Israel again to his habitation, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan [fruitful garden], and his soul shall be satisfied upon mount Ephraim and Gilead [the second blessing and the mountain of testimony].
20 In those days, and in that time, says the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.

The names “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon” mean the lies of the false prophets, the abominations that caused the desolation of God’s people, produced the confusion that now rules over the world. As we know from 2 Thessalonians 2, the LORD comes with the truth, against those holding down His people with lies, and these captors’ destruction comes because they “receive not the love of the truth.” Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon is the strong delusion the LORD sends these men, and their delusion is as the panicked delusion of Midian, fleeing from the sword of the LORD, which is the truth of the word of God.

John refers us to this full story by one mention of “the voice of the bridegroom” in Revelation 18:23, a quote that only appears four other times, Jeremiah 7:34, 16:9, 25:10, & 33:11, and similarly spoken of once in John 3:29.

John 3
29 He that has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.
30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
31 He that comes from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaks of the earth: he that comes from heaven is above all.
32 And what he has seen and heard, that he testifies; and no man receives his testimony.
33 He that has received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
34 For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God: for God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him.
35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.
36 He that believe on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believe not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.

Revelation 18
1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she has filled fill to her double.
7 How much she has glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she says in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the LORD God who judges her.
9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is your judgment come.
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buys their merchandise any more:
12 The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
13 And cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
14 And the fruits that your soul lusted after are departed from you, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from you, and you shall find them no more at all.
15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
16 And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to naught. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
18 And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
20 Rejoice over her, you heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets; for God has avenged you on her.
21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in you; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in you; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in you;
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in you; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in you: for your merchants were the great men of the earth; for by your sorceries were all nations deceived.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

Jeremiah 7
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.
3 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
4 Trust you not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.
5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;
6 If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:
7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.
8 Behold, you trust in lying words, that cannot profit.
9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not;
10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?
11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the LORD.
12 But go you now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
13 And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke unto you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not; and I called you, but you answered not;
14 Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein you trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
16 Therefore pray not you for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear you.
17 See you not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19 Do they provoke me to anger? says the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
20 Therefore thus says the LORD God; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
21 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
22 For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.
27 Therefore you shall speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to you: you shall also call unto them; but they will not answer you.
28 But you shall say unto them, This is a nation that obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, nor received correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.
31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.
32 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.
33 And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.
34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

Jeremiah 15
15 O LORD, you know: remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in your longsuffering: know that for your sake I have suffered rebuke.
16 Your words were found, and I did eat them; and your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by your name, O LORD God of hosts.
17 I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of your hand: for you have filled me with indignation.
18 Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuse to be healed? will you be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?
19 Therefore thus says the LORD, If you return, then will I bring you again, and you shall stand before me: and if you take forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth: let them return unto you; but return not you unto them.
20 And I will make you unto this people a fenced brazen wall: and they shall fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you: for I am with you to save you and to deliver you, says the LORD.
21 And I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.

Jeremiah 16
1 The word of the LORD came also unto me, saying,
2 You shall not take you a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters in this place.
3 For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land;
4 They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
5 For thus says the LORD, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, says the LORD, even lovingkindness and mercies.
6 Both the great and the small shall die in this land: they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them:
7 Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
8 You shall not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink.
9 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes, and in your days, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.
10 And it shall come to pass, when you shall show this people all these words, and they shall say unto you, Wherefore has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?
11 Then shall you say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, says the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law;
12 And you have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, you walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me:
13 Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that you know not, neither you nor your fathers; and there shall you serve other gods day and night; where I will not show you favor.
14 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD lives, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
15 But, The LORD lives, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.
16 Behold, I will send for many fishers, says the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.
17 For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.
18 And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable things.
19 O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto you from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.
20 Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?
21 Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD.

Jeremiah 25
1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon;
2 The which Jeremiah the prophet spoke unto all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying,
3 From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the LORD has come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but you have not hearkened.
4 And the LORD has sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but you have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear.
5 They said, Turn you again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever:
6 And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.
7 Yet you have not hearkened unto me, says the LORD; that you might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.
8 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts; Because you have not heard my words,
9 Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the LORD, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.
10 Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.
11 And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
12 And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.
13 And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.
14 For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.
15 For thus says the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it.
16 And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.
17 Then took I the cup at the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:
18 To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse; as it is this day;
19 Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people;
20 And all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod,
21 Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon,
22 And all the kings of Tyrus, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles which are beyond the sea,
23 Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners,
24 And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert,
25 And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes,
26 And all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.
27 Therefore you shall say unto them, Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Drink you, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.
28 And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to drink, then shall you say unto them, Thus says the LORD of hosts; You shall certainly drink.
29 For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD of hosts.
30 Therefore prophesy you against them all these words, and say unto them, The LORD shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.
31 A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, says the LORD.
32 Thus says the LORD of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.
33 And the slain of the LORD shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.
34 Howl, you shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, you principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; and you shall fall like a pleasant vessel.
35 And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape.
36 A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and a howling of the principal of the flock, shall be heard: for the LORD has spoiled their pasture.
37 And the peaceable habitations are cut down because of the fierce anger of the LORD.
38 He has forsaken his covert, as the lion: for their land is desolate because of the fierceness of the oppressor, and because of his fierce anger.

Jeremiah 33
1 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying,
2 Thus says the LORD the maker thereof, the LORD that formed it, to establish it; the LORD is his name;
3 Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not.
4 For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are thrown down by the mounts, and by the sword;
5 They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city.
6 Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.
7 And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first.
8 And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me.
9 And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honor before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them: and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.
10 Thus says the LORD; Again there shall be heard in this place, which you say shall be desolate without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man, and without inhabitant, and without beast,
11 The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say, Praise the LORD of hosts: for the LORD is good; for his mercy endures for ever: and of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the LORD. For I will cause to return the captivity of the land, as at the first, says the LORD.
12 Thus says the LORD of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.
13 In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities of the south, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him that tells them, says the LORD.
14 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.
16 In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness.
17 For thus says the LORD; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel;
18 Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.
19 And the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, saying,
20 Thus says the LORD; If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season;
21 Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers.
22 As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.
23 Moreover the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying,
24 Consider you not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD has chosen, he has even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.
25 Thus says the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;
26 Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.

Psalms 7
1 O LORD my God, in you do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:
2 Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.
3 O LORD my God, If I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands;
4 If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy:)
5 Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honor in the dust. Selah.
6 Arise, O LORD, in your anger, lift up yourself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that you have commanded.
7 So shall the congregation of the people compass you about: for their sakes therefore return you on high.
8 The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.
9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God tries the hearts and reins.
10 My defense is of God, which saves the upright in heart.
11 God judges the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
12 If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he has bent his bow, and made it ready.
13 He has also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordains his arrows against the persecutors.
14 Behold, he travails with iniquity, and has conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
15 He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.
16 His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.
17 I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high.

Howl you, Woe worth the day! For the day is near, even the day of the LORD is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.

The word rendered “heathen” above, in the title from Ezekiel 30:2 & 3, is gowy, meaning the masses, nations, among which God’s people are constantly scattered, and from which they are almost always under threat. The word garowb, translated “near,” meaning near in place or time, and also at hand – as it is.

The nations are those spoken of in the chapters before, who are all represented in the name Canaan. What we see in its examination is the nations mentioned, the ideas they represent, are those which afflict God’s people and must be overcome. This is the promise, that in overcoming them we possess any land we inhabit.

The name Canaan is from the Hebrew words kana and kin’ah, meaning to vanquish and wares, and as the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon says its (Canaan’s) meaning is: merchant and trader.

The chapters before specifically identify Tyrus (Tyre), the false rock in who men put their trust. In this specific context, putting undue trust in, Egypt is also mentioned. The focus of Ezekiel 27 is the LORD speaking against all the many merchant nations that are doing business with Tyre. As we understand, Tyrus represents the church and state establishment, the many varying sects represented as the ships in which they carry their wares through the sea (to the mixed masses).

Ezekiel 27
1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2 Now, you son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus;
3 And say unto Tyrus, O you that are situated at the entry of the sea, which are a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus says the LORD God; O Tyrus, you have said, I am of perfect beauty.
4 Your borders are in the midst of the seas, your builders have perfected your beauty.
5 They have made all your ship boards of fir trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for you.
6 Of the oaks of Bashan have they made your oars; the company of the Ashurites has made your benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.
7 Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which you spread forth to be your sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered you.
8 The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were your mariners: your wise men, O Tyrus, that were in you, were your pilots.
9 The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in you your calkers: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in you to occupy your merchandise.
10 They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in your army, your men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in you; they set forth your comeliness.
11 The men of Arvad with your army were upon your walls round about, and the Gammadims were in your towers: they hanged their shields upon your walls round about; they have made your beauty perfect.
12 Tarshish was your merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in your fairs.
13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were your merchants: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in your market.
14 They of the house of Togarmah traded in your fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.
15 The men of Dedan were your merchants; many isles were the merchandise of your hand: they brought you for a present horns of ivory and ebony.
16 Syria was your merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of your making: they occupied in your fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate.
17 Judah, and the land of Israel, they were your merchants: they traded in your market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.
18 Damascus was your merchant in the multitude of the wares of your making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool.
19 Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in your fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in your market.
20 Dedan was your merchant in precious clothes for chariots.
21 Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with you in lambs, and rams, and goats: in these were they your merchants.
22 The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were your merchants: they occupied in your fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.
23 Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were your merchants.
24 These were your merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar, among your merchandise.
25 The ships of Tarshish did sing of you in your market: and you were replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas.
26 Your rowers have brought you into great waters: the east wind has broken you in the midst of the seas.
27 Your riches, and your fairs, your merchandise, your mariners, and your pilots, your caulkers, and the occupiers of your merchandise, and all your men of war, that are in you, and in all your company which is in the midst of you, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of your ruin.
28 The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of your pilots [those who’ve steered their institutions into this state].
29 And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land;
30 And shall cause their voice to be heard against you, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes:
31 And they shall make themselves utterly bald for you, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for you with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.
32 And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for you, and lament over you, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?
33 When your wares went forth out of the seas, you filled many people; you did enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of your riches and of your merchandise.
34 In the time when you shall be broken by the seas [by he masses] in the depths of the waters your merchandise [lies and deceptions] and all your company in the midst of you shall fall.
35 All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at you, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance.
36 The merchants among the people shall hiss at you; you shall be a terror, and never shall be any more.

2 Peter 2
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the LORD that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned [false and deceptive] words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingers not, and their damnation slumbers not.

Whereas chapter 27 speaks of the institutions of church and state, the ships “in the midst of the seas,” it also mentions the pilots, the so-called wise men, who steer them. The phrase “in the midst” of the seas, meaning among the mixed masses, God’s people mingled together with the nations, appears six times in the chapter (verses 4, 25, 26, 27, 32, & 34). The same phrase appears in chapter 28 six more times (verses 2, 8, 14, 18, 22, & 23) when speaking to the prince, and then to the king, of Tyrus, who are the leaders of the institutions and direct the pilots and the merchants.

The phrase (“in the midst”) appears twelve times between the end of Ezekiel 21 and the end of chapter 22, all to describe who the phrase is identifying in the later chapters.

Ezekiel 21
25 And you, profane wicked prince [the princes and kings who rule over and oppress God’s people] of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end,
26 Thus says the LORD God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.
27 I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.
28 And you, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus says the LORD God concerning the Ammonites [these princes and kings who exalt themselves above God], and concerning their reproach; even say you, The sword, the sword is drawn: for the slaughter it is furbished, to consume because of the glittering:
29 Whiles they see vanity unto you, whiles they divine a lie unto you, to bring you upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end.
30 Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge you in the place where you were created [in the garden – see Ezekiel 28:13 below], in the land of your nativity.
31 And I will pour out mine indignation upon you, I will blow against you in the fire of my wrath, and deliver you into the hand of brutish men, and skillful to destroy.
32 You shall be for fuel to the fire; your blood shall be in the midst of the land; you shall be no more remembered: for I the LORD has spoken it.

Ezekiel 22
1 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Now, you son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? yea, you shall shew her all her abominations.
3 Then say you, Thus says the LORD God, The city shed blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and makes idols against herself to defile herself.
4 You are become guilty in your blood that you have shed; and have defiled yourself in your idols which you have made; and you have caused your days to draw near, and are come even unto your years: therefore have I made you a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.
5 Those that be near, and those that be far from you, shall mock you, which are infamous and much vexed.
6 Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in you to their power to shed blood.
7 In you have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of you have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in you have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.
8 You have despised mine holy things, and have profaned my Sabbaths.
9 In you are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in you they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of you they commit lewdness.
10 In you have they discovered their fathers’ nakedness: in you have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution.
11 And one has committed abomination with his neighbor’s wife; and another has lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in you have humbled his sister, his father’s daughter.
12 In you have they taken gifts to shed blood; you have taken usury and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by extortion, and have forgotten me, says the LORD God.
13 Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at your dishonest gain which you have made, and at your blood which has been in the midst of you.
14 Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it.
15 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and disperse you in the countries, and will consume your filthiness out of you.
16 And you shall take your inheritance in yourself in the sight of the heathen, and you shall know that I am the LORD.
17 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
18 Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver.
19 Therefore thus saith the LORD God; Because you are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.
20 As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.
21 Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst thereof.
22 As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be melted in the midst thereof; and you shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury upon you.
23 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
24 Son of man, say unto her, You are the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.
25 There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.
26 Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
27 Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.
28 And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus says the LORD God, when the LORD has not spoken.
29 The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.
30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.
31 Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, says the LORD God.

Ezekiel 26
2 Son of man, because that Tyrus has said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste:
3 Therefore thus says the LORD God; Behold, I am against you, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes his waves to come up.
4 And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.
5 It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, says the LORD God: and it shall become a spoil to the nations.
6 And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 For thus says the LORD God; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.

Ezekiel 28
1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the LORD God; Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet you are a man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God:
3 Behold, you are wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from you:
4 With your wisdom and with your understanding you have gotten you riches, and have gotten gold and silver into your treasures:
5 By your great wisdom and by your traffic have you increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of your riches:
6 Therefore thus saith the LORD God; Because you have set your heart as the heart of God;
7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon you, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, and they shall defile your brightness.
8 They shall bring you down to the pit, and you shall die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9 Will you yet say before him that slayeth you, I am God? but you shall be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth you.
10 You shall die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the LORD God.
11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God; You sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13 You have been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of your tabrets and of your pipes was prepared in you in the day that you wast created.
14 You are the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set you so: you were upon the holy mountain of God; you have walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 You were perfect in your ways from the day that you wast created, till iniquity was found in you.
16 By the multitude of your merchandise they have filled the midst of you with violence, and you have sinned: therefore I will cast you as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty, you have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your brightness: I will cast you to the ground, I will lay you before kings, that they may behold you.
18 You have defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of you, it shall devour you, and I will bring you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold you.
19 All they that know you among the people shall be astonished at you: you shall be a terror, and never shall you be any more.
20 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
21 Son of man, set your face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22 And say, Thus saith the LORD God; Behold, I am against you, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of you: and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.
23 For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
24 And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them ; and they shall know that I am the LORD God.
25 Thus says the LORD God; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
26 And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.

Verse 24 above is referring us to Psalms 110:2, the title of a previous post, which tells of the one who rules “in the midst” of his enemies. It is also speaking of what is written in Number 33:55, and of Isaiah 34 telling of when thorns have come up in our palaces. These thorns are the princes and kings, as Edom in the sheepfold, as the enemies mixed among us leading the masses away from the LORD.

Psalms 110
1 The LORD said unto my LORD, Sit you at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.
2 The LORD shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion: rule you in the midst of your enemies.
3 Your people shall be willing in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: you have the dew of your youth.
4 The LORD has sworn, and will not repent, You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
5 The LORD at your right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
6 He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.
7 He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.

Numbers 33
50 And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho [at the gates of hell, by the words that carried all into death, before the wall, lies that come between God and man, fell], saying,
51 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When you are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan [the merchants of deception, who you will vanquish];
52 Then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:
53 And you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it.
54 And you shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more you shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer you shall give the less inheritance: every man’s inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falls; according to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit.
55 But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which you let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes [blinding you], and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein you dwell.
56 Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.

Isaiah 34
1 Come near, you nations, to hear; and hearken, you people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it.
2 For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he has utterly destroyed them, he has delivered them to the slaughter.
3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
4 And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falls off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.
5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.
6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah [in the sheepfold], and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea [Edom, as the enemy among us].
7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
8 For it is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.
9 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.
10 It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
11 But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness [and I saw the earth and it was without for, and void].
12 They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing.
13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be a habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.
14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.
15 There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.
16 Seek you out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it has commanded, and his spirit it has gathered them.
17 And he has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.

Isaiah 22
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah:
21 And I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen him with your girdle, and I will commit your government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.
22 And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.
23 And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house.
24 And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons.
25 In that day, says the LORD of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the LORD has spoken it.

Isaiah 23
1 The burden of Tyre. Howl, you ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it is revealed to them.
2 Be still, you inhabitants of the isle; you whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished.
3 And by great waters the seed of Sihor, the harvest of the river, is her revenue; and she is a mart of nations.
4 Be you ashamed, O Zidon: for the sea has spoken, even the strength of the sea, saying, I travail not, nor bring forth children, neither do I nourish up young men, nor bring up virgins.
5 As at the report concerning Egypt, so shall they be sorely pained at the report of Tyre.
6 Pass you over to Tarshish; howl, you inhabitants of the isle.
7 Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.
8 Who has taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth?
9 The LORD of hosts has purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth.
10 Pass through your land as a river, O daughter of Tarshish: there is no more strength.
11 He stretched out his hand over the sea, he shook the kingdoms: the LORD has given a commandment against the merchant city, to destroy the strong holds thereof.
12 And he said, You shall no more rejoice, O you oppressed virgin, daughter of Zidon: arise, pass over to Chittim; there also shall you have no rest.
13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin.
14 Howl, you ships of Tarshish: for your strength is laid waste.
15 And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as a harlot.
16 Take a harp, go about the city, you harlot that has been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that you may be remembered.
17 And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire [she shall change her hire], and shall commit fornication [and shall interact] with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.
18 And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD [her merchandise shall be the holiness of the LORD]: it shall not be treasured nor laid up [shall not be held back]; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.

Isaiah 24
1 Behold, the LORD makes the earth empty, and makes it waste, and turns it upside down, and scatters abroad the inhabitants thereof.
2 And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.
3 The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD has spoken this word.
4 The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and fades away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.

Psalms 46
1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains [the high places that have risen from and loom over the earth] be carried into the midst of the sea;
3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he has made in the earth.
9 He makes wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and cuts the spear in sunder; he burns the chariot in the fire.
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

What sign show you unto us, seeing that you do these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

What sign show you unto us, seeing that you do these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
The title is the LORD speaking of what we’ve seen in previous posts, the destruction of the LORD’s house, which comes by destroying the cognitive ability of his people. We saw Hezekiah ask a similar question in the final verse of Isaiah 38, and the following chapter speaking of the total desolation (by steps into hell), and the LORD, by His Spirit moving, raising His body: Him in His people.
John 27 Jesus said unto them, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. [And His Spirit moved upon the face of the waters – the first miraculous event, as in Genesis 1:2]8 And he said unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,10 And said unto him, Every man at the beginning does set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but you have kept the good wine until now.11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days.13 And the Jews’ Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign show you unto us, seeing that you do these things?19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and will you rear it up in three days?21 But he spoke of the temple of his body.22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men,25 And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.
The quote mentioned in verse 17 above is referring us to Psalms 69:9, where, in context, it tells of the desolation of the house, which we saw in the prior post spoken of in a pattern in Isaiah 39. The zeal of the LORD, in His elect remnant, foretold in Isaiah 37:32, rises up and raises up His body. In the passage the LORD, through Isaiah the son of Amoz (names saying: Jehovah’s salvation by renewed strength), speaks to Sennacherib the king of Assyria. Sennacherib and Assyria are names describing the pattern in our time, saying: the moon (civil government) has multiplied into many (confederate) in the degeneration into communism.
The pattern tells of how communism has destroyed every nation it has come against, and now comes against us claiming we will not escape its effects. There is one difference, and Hezekiah (Jehovah strengthens) remembers Who that difference is: the One and only living God.
Isaiah 3715 And Hezekiah prayed unto the LORD, saying,16 “O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, that dwells between the cherubims, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: you have made heaven and earth.17 Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which has sent to reproach the living God.18 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have [the internal degeneration into communism has] laid waste all the nations, and their countries,19 And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD, even you only.”21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Whereas you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria:22 This is the word which the LORD has spoken concerning him; ‘The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you, and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.23 Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? and against whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.24 By your servants have you reproached the LORD, and have said, ‘By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the height of his border, and the forest of his Carmel. [will cut down all the mighty men who stood against them.]25 I have digged, and drunk water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places [stopped the word of God, and the truth of the devastating effect of communism, all truth, from flowing to the people].’26 Have you not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that you should be to lay waste defensed cities into ruinous heaps.27 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.28 But I know your abode, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against me.29 Because your rage against me, and your tumult, is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came [by the same steps].’30 And this shall be a sign unto you, ‘You shall eat this year such as grows of itself; and the second year that which springs of the same: and in the third year sow you, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.31 And the [elect] remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward [shall rise by reversing the steps of the fall]:32 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.'”33 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, “He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it.34 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, says the LORD.35 For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.”
The “zeal” spoken of above in verse 32 is from the Hebrew word qin’ah, meaning the spirit in us inspiring us to act (move). In the context of our conversation, it is rendered “jealousy” in Isaiah 42:13 in defining what the LORD’s inspiration produces, which is to inspirit those who have been in darkness to open their mouths.
Isaiah 426 I the LORD have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light [understanding] of the Gentiles;7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.10 Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, you that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.11 Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar [darkness – blinding ignorance] does inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.12 Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands [the places where His word isn’t heard].13 The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy [qin’ah] like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies.14 I have long time held my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.15 I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.17 They shall be turned back [return by reversing the steps into darkness], they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, You are our gods.18 Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see.
The travail spoken of in verse 14 above is describing the LORD inspiring His elect to open their mouths and this as bringing forth the child waiting to born. It is spoken of in Isaiah 8, when the light comes to those sitting in darkness, the child is born, and the zeal (inspiration – His Spirit reproduced in us) of the LORD of (hosts) the armies of heaven performs it.
Isaiah 92 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined.3 You have multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before you according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.4 For you have broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.5 For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.8 The LORD sent a word into Jacob, and it has lighted upon Israel.9 And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart,10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin [a firm enemy] against him [against those trying to rebuild with the same ideas that caused the destruction], and join his enemies together;12 The Syrians [those who exalt themselves above God] before, and the Philistines [foreign invaders – with their idols] behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.13 For the people turn not unto him that smite them [their enemies], neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.15 The ancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teaches lies, he is the tail.16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.17 Therefore the LORD shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.18 For wickedness burns as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.
Verse 9 & 10 above tell of the those who’ve replaced the LORD with idols, knowing their condition and the need for rebuilding what they have destroyed, but still not seeking the LORD or doing it His way.
Luke 639 And he spoke a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?40 The disciple is not above his master [teacher]: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master [learning what is taught].41 And why behold you the mote that is in your brother’s eye, but perceive not the beam that is in your own eye [which is blinding you and removing your good judgment]?42 Either how can you say to your brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in your eye, when you yourself behold not the beam [the balance beam of a scale – which if off-center doesn’t weigh {judge} properly] that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of your own eye, and then shall you see [judge] clearly to pull out the mote that is in your brother’s eye.43 For a good tree brings not forth corrupt fruit; neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.44 For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good [words which are good, that show good judgment]; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth that which is evil [words which are evil, that show evil judgment]: for of the abundance of the heart [reasoning mind] his mouth speaks.46 And why call you me, LORD, LORD, and do not the things which I say?47 Whosoever comes to me, and hears my sayings, and does them, I will show you to whom he is like:48 He is like a man which built a house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock [see Isaiah 42:11 above, saying of those who have come out of blindness, “let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains”]: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.49 But he that hears, and does not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great. [This is why the house these men are trying to rebuild will never stand: it has no foundation.] Matthew 1612 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?14 And they said, Some say that you are John the Baptist: some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.15 He said unto them, But whom say you that I am?16 And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona [son of Jonah – first to come from the belly of the earth {hell}, by his words]: for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but my Father which is in heaven.18 And I say also unto you, That you are Peter, and upon this rock [the foundation of hearing the Father alone revealing the son {Christ in us speaking the Father’s word revealing Him}, and the fruit confessing what is understood] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.19 And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.21 From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
Zephaniah 3 1 Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!2 She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God.3 Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.4 Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.5 The just LORD is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning does he bring his judgment to light, he fails not; but the unjust know no shame.6 I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passes by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant.7 I said, Surely you will fear me, you will receive instruction; so their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them: but they rose early, and corrupted all their doings.8 Therefore wait you upon me, says the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy [qin’ah – the fire of My zeal].9 For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.10 From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia [beyond the words of darkness] my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering.11 In that day shall you not be ashamed for all your doings, wherein you have transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of you them that rejoice in your pride, and you shall no more be haughty because of my holy mountain.12 I will also leave in the midst of you an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD.13 The [elect] remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.14 Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.15 The LORD has taken away your judgments, he has cast out your enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of you: you shall not see evil any more.16 In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear you not: and to Zion, Let not your hands be slack.17 The LORD your God in the midst of you is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over you with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over you with singing.18 I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of you, to whom the reproach of it was a burden.19 Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict you: and I will save her that halts, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.20 At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, says the LORD.
Matthew 11 1 And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,3 And said unto him, Are you he that should come, or do we look for another?4 Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which you do hear and see:5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.6 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.7 And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went you out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?8 But what went you out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.9 But what went you out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.10 For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, which shall prepare your way before you.11 Truly I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffer violence, and the violent take it by force.13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.14 And if you will receive it, this is Elijah, which was for to come.15 He that has ears to hear, let him hear.16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented.18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a devil.19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.20 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:21 Woe unto you, Chorazin [you who are in the furnace filled with smoke]! woe unto you, Bethsaida [you who are in the houses where they hunt for souls they devour]! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon [who, as you, are the pattern of the false rock and hunters of souls], they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.23 And you, Capernaum [you who live in comfort and are therefore complacent], which are exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in you, had been done in Sodom [where the fire of hell are burning], it would have remained until this day.24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank you, O Father, LORD of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes.26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in your sight.27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.28 Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls.30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Psalms 69 1 Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.3 I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.5 O God, you know my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from you.6 Let not them that wait on you, O LORD God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek you be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.7 Because for your sake I have borne reproach; shame has covered my face.8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.9 For the zeal [qin’ah] of your house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me.10 When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach.11 I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them.12 They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.13 But as for me, my prayer is unto you, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of your mercy hear me, in the truth of your salvation.14 Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.15 Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.16 Hear me, O LORD; for your lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of your tender mercies.17 And hide not your face from your servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.18 Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.19 You have known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: mine adversaries are all before you.20 Reproach has broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.21 They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.22 Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.23 Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.24 Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your wrathful anger take hold of them.25 Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.26 For they persecute him whom you have smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom you have wounded.27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into your righteousness.28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.29 But I am poor and sorrowful: let your salvation, O God, set me up on high.30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.31 This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs.32 The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.33 For the LORD hears the poor, and despises not his prisoners.34 Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moves therein.35 For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.36 The seed also of his servants shall inherit it: and they that love his name shall dwell therein.

The title is the LORD speaking of what we’ve seen in previous posts, the destruction of the LORD’s house, which comes by destroying the cognitive ability of his people. We saw Hezekiah ask a similar question in the final verse of Isaiah 38, and the following chapter speaking of the total desolation (by steps into hell), and the LORD, by His Spirit moving, raising His body: Him in His people.

John 2
7 Jesus said unto them, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. [And His Spirit moved upon the face of the waters – the first miraculous event, as in Genesis 1:2]
8 And he said unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.
9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,
10 And said unto him, Every man at the beginning does set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but you have kept the good wine until now.
11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.
12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days.
13 And the Jews’ Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;
16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.
17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.
18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign show you unto us, seeing that you do these things?
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and will you rear it up in three days?
21 But he spoke of the temple of his body.
22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.
24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men,
25 And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.

The quote mentioned in verse 17 above is referring us to Psalms 69:9, where, in context, it tells of the desolation of the house, which we saw in the prior post spoken of in a pattern in Isaiah 39. The zeal of the LORD, in His elect remnant, foretold in Isaiah 37:32, rises up and raises up His body. In the passage the LORD, through Isaiah the son of Amoz (names saying: Jehovah’s salvation by renewed strength), speaks to Sennacherib the king of Assyria. Sennacherib and Assyria are names describing the pattern in our time, saying: the moon (civil government) has multiplied into many (confederate) in the degeneration into communism.

The pattern tells of how communism has destroyed every nation it has come against, and now comes against us claiming we will not escape its effects. There is one difference, and Hezekiah (Jehovah strengthens) remembers Who that difference is: the One and only living God.

Isaiah 37
15 And Hezekiah prayed unto the LORD, saying,
16 “O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, that dwells between the cherubims, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: you have made heaven and earth.
17 Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which has sent to reproach the living God.
18 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have [the internal degeneration into communism has] laid waste all the nations, and their countries,
19 And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.
20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD, even you only.”
21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Whereas you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria:
22 This is the word which the LORD has spoken concerning him; ‘The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you, and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.
23 Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? and against whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.
24 By your servants have you reproached the LORD, and have said, ‘By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the height of his border, and the forest of his Carmel. [will cut down all the mighty men who stood against them.]
25 I have digged, and drunk water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places [stopped the word of God, and the truth of the devastating effect of communism, all truth, from flowing to the people].’
26 Have you not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that you should be to lay waste defensed cities into ruinous heaps.
27 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.
28 But I know your abode, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against me.
29 Because your rage against me, and your tumult, is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came [by the same steps].’
30 And this shall be a sign unto you, ‘You shall eat this year such as grows of itself; and the second year that which springs of the same: and in the third year sow you, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.
31 And the [elect] remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward [shall rise by reversing the steps of the fall]:
32 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.'”
33 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, “He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it.
34 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, says the LORD.
35 For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.”

The “zeal” spoken of above in verse 32 is from the Hebrew word qin’ah, meaning the spirit in us inspiring us to act (move). In the context of our conversation, it is rendered “jealousy” in Isaiah 42:13 in defining what the LORD’s inspiration produces, which is to inspirit those who have been in darkness to open their mouths.

Isaiah 42
6 I the LORD have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light [understanding] of the Gentiles;
7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
10 Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, you that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.
11 Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar [darkness – blinding ignorance] does inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.
12 Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands [the places where His word isn’t heard].
13 The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy [qin’ah] like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies.
14 I have long time held my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.
15 I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.
16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.
17 They shall be turned back [return by reversing the steps into darkness], they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, You are our gods.
18 Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see.

The travail spoken of in verse 14 above is describing the LORD inspiring His elect to open their mouths and this as bringing forth the child waiting to born. It is spoken of in Isaiah 8, when the light comes to those sitting in darkness, the child is born, and the zeal (inspiration – His Spirit reproduced in us) of the LORD of (hosts) the armies of heaven performs it.

Isaiah 9
2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before you according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
4 For you have broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
5 For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
8 The LORD sent a word into Jacob, and it has lighted upon Israel.
9 And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart,
10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin [a firm enemy] against him [against those trying to rebuild with the same ideas that caused the destruction], and join his enemies together;
12 The Syrians [those who exalt themselves above God] before, and the Philistines [foreign invaders – with their idols] behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
13 For the people turn not unto him that smite them [their enemies], neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.
14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
15 The ancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teaches lies, he is the tail.
16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
17 Therefore the LORD shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
18 For wickedness burns as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

Verse 9 & 10 above tell of the those who’ve replaced the LORD with idols, knowing their condition and the need for rebuilding what they have destroyed, but still not seeking the LORD or doing it His way.

Luke 6
39 And he spoke a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?
40 The disciple is not above his master [teacher]: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master [learning what is taught].
41 And why behold you the mote that is in your brother’s eye, but perceive not the beam that is in your own eye [which is blinding you and removing your good judgment]?
42 Either how can you say to your brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in your eye, when you yourself behold not the beam [the balance beam of a scale – which if off-center doesn’t weigh {judge} properly] that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of your own eye, and then shall you see [judge] clearly to pull out the mote that is in your brother’s eye.
43 For a good tree brings not forth corrupt fruit; neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
44 For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.
45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good [words which are good, that show good judgment]; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth that which is evil [words which are evil, that show evil judgment]: for of the abundance of the heart [reasoning mind] his mouth speaks.
46 And why call you me, LORD, LORD, and do not the things which I say?
47 Whosoever comes to me, and hears my sayings, and does them, I will show you to whom he is like:
48 He is like a man which built a house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock [see Isaiah 42:11 above, saying of those who have come out of blindness, “let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains”]: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
49 But he that hears, and does not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great. [This is why the house these men are trying to rebuild will never stand: it has no foundation.]

Matthew 16
12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
14 And they said, Some say that you are John the Baptist: some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.
15 He said unto them, But whom say you that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona [son of Jonah – first to come from the belly of the earth {hell}, by his words]: for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but my Father which is in heaven.
18 And I say also unto you, That you are Peter, and upon this rock [the foundation of hearing the Father alone revealing the son {Christ in us speaking the Father’s word revealing Him}, and the fruit confessing what is understood] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
19 And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.
21 From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

Zephaniah 3
1 Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!
2 She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God.
3 Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.
4 Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.
5 The just LORD is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning does he bring his judgment to light, he fails not; but the unjust know no shame.
6 I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passes by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant.
7 I said, Surely you will fear me, you will receive instruction; so their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them: but they rose early, and corrupted all their doings.
8 Therefore wait you upon me, says the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy [qin’ah – the fire of My zeal].
9 For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.
10 From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia [beyond the words of darkness] my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering.
11 In that day shall you not be ashamed for all your doings, wherein you have transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of you them that rejoice in your pride, and you shall no more be haughty because of my holy mountain.
12 I will also leave in the midst of you an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD.
13 The [elect] remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
14 Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.
15 The LORD has taken away your judgments, he has cast out your enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of you: you shall not see evil any more.
16 In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear you not: and to Zion, Let not your hands be slack.
17 The LORD your God in the midst of you is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over you with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over you with singing.
18 I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of you, to whom the reproach of it was a burden.
19 Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict you: and I will save her that halts, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.
20 At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, says the LORD.

Matthew 11
1 And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.
2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,
3 And said unto him, Are you he that should come, or do we look for another?
4 Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which you do hear and see:
5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
6 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.
7 And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went you out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?
8 But what went you out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.
9 But what went you out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.
10 For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, which shall prepare your way before you.
11 Truly I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffer violence, and the violent take it by force.
13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
14 And if you will receive it, this is Elijah, which was for to come.
15 He that has ears to hear, let him hear.
16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented.
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a devil.
19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
20 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:
21 Woe unto you, Chorazin [you who are in the furnace filled with smoke]! woe unto you, Bethsaida [you who are in the houses where they hunt for souls they devour]! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon [who, as you, are the pattern of the false rock and hunters of souls], they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
23 And you, Capernaum [you who live in comfort and are therefore complacent], which are exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in you, had been done in Sodom [where the fire of hell are burning], it would have remained until this day.
24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.
25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank you, O Father, LORD of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes.
26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in your sight.
27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
28 Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Psalms 69
1 Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.
2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
3 I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.
5 O God, you know my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from you.
6 Let not them that wait on you, O LORD God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek you be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.
7 Because for your sake I have borne reproach; shame has covered my face.
8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.
9 For the zeal [qin’ah] of your house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me.
10 When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach.
11 I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them.
12 They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.
13 But as for me, my prayer is unto you, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of your mercy hear me, in the truth of your salvation.
14 Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.
15 Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.
16 Hear me, O LORD; for your lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of your tender mercies.
17 And hide not your face from your servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.
18 Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.
19 You have known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: mine adversaries are all before you.
20 Reproach has broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.
21 They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.
23 Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.
24 Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your wrathful anger take hold of them.
25 Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.
26 For they persecute him whom you have smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom you have wounded.
27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
29 But I am poor and sorrowful: let your salvation, O God, set me up on high.
30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs.
32 The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.
33 For the LORD hears the poor, and despises not his prisoners.
34 Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moves therein.
35 For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.
36 The seed also of his servants shall inherit it: and they that love his name shall dwell therein.

Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up [by steps] to the house of the LORD?

The above is a question ending Isaiah 38, and for those who may have read the prior post before the following note was added, here it is again, preceding the post of the mentioned chapters. “The answer is given in the following chapters, 39 telling of the total desolation that would follow, and 40 thru 45 the enlightenment that straightens what became crooked, the renewal of strength, and the rebuilding.”

Isaiah 39
1 At that time Merodachbaladan [rebellion in the name of his god who is Baal], the son of Baladan [his god is Baal], king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered.
2 And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not.
3 Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto you? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon.
4 Then said he, What have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them.
5 Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts:
6 Behold, the days come, that all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, says the LORD.
7 And of your sons that shall issue from you, which you shall beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
8 Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which you have spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days. [In the days of Hezekiah, the strength of Jehovah, there is peace and truth. But, after the strength leaves {the sons become eunuchs ruled under confusion}, because the riches {the knowledge of God} would fall into the hands of idol worshippers.]

Isaiah 40
1 Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God. [the foretelling of the pattern, now, when all the world is ruled by confusion, of the coming comforter, who would lead us out and into all truth, as He has this day.]
2 Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him that cries in the wilderness [midbar], Prepare you the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway [mcillah] for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.
6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7 The grass withers, the flower fades: because the spirit of the LORD blows upon it: surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
9 O Zion, that brings good tidings, get you up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that brings good tidings, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10 Behold, the LORD God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor has taught him?
14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
18 To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare unto him?
19 The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains.
20 He that is so impoverished that he has no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.
21 Have you not known? have you not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in:
23 That brings the princes to nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as vanity.
24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
25 To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: he calls them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one fails.
27 Why say you, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
28 Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Isaiah 41
1 Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.
2 Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow.
3 He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet.
4 Who has wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.
5 The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.
6 They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.
7 So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smooths with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved.
8 But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.
9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called you from the chief men thereof, and said unto you, You are my servant; I have chosen you, and not cast you away.
10 Fear you not; for I am with you: be not dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yea, I will help you; yea, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.
11 Behold, all they that were incensed against you shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with you shall perish.
12 You shall seek them, and shall not find them, even them that contended with you: they that war against you shall be as nothing, and as a thing of naught.
13 For I the LORD your God will hold your right hand, saying unto you, Fear not; I will help you.
14 Fear not, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the LORD, and your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
15 Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff.
16 You shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and you shall rejoice in the LORD, and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel.
17 When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness [midbar] a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
19 I will plant in the wilderness [midbar] the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together:
20 That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
21 Produce your cause, says the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob.
22 Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.
23 Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.
24 Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of naught: an abomination is he that chooses you.
25 I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treads clay.
26 Who has declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that shows, yea, there is none that declares, yea, there is none that hears your words.
27 The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that brings good tidings.
28 For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.
29 Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are wind and confusion.

Isaiah 42
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
5 Thus says God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
6 I the LORD have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
10 Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, you that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.
11 Let the wilderness [midbar] and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar [darkness] does inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.
12 Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands.
13 The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies.
14 I have long time held my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.
15 I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.
16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.
17 They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, You are our gods.
18 Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see.
19 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD’s servant?
20 Seeing many things, but you observes not; opening the ears, but he hears not.
21 The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honorable.
22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivers; for a spoil, and none says, Restore.
23 Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come?
24 Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.
25 Therefore he has poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it has set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.

Isaiah 43
1 But now thus says the LORD that created you, O Jacob, and he that formed you, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you.
3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior: I gave Egypt [your captors] for your ransom, Ethiopia [darkness – ignorance] and Seba [as their drink] for you.
4 Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honorable, and I have loved you: therefore will I give men for you, and people for your life.
5 Fear not: for I am with you: I will bring your seed from the east, and gather you from the west;
6 I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;
7 Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.
8 Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears.
9 Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and show us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth.
10 You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no savior.
12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shown, when there was no strange god among you: therefore you are my witnesses, says the LORD, that I am God.
13 Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it?
14 Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.
15 I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.
16 Thus says the LORD, which makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;
17 Which brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.
18 Remember you not the former things, neither consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness [midbar], and rivers in the desert.
20 The beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons [those devouring with their open mouths] and the owls [those hunting their prey in the darkness]: because I give waters in the wilderness [midbar], and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
21 This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise.
22 But you have not called upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel.
23 You have not brought me the small cattle of your burnt offerings; neither have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not caused you to serve with an offering, nor wearied you with incense.
24 You have bought me no sweet cane with money, neither have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices: but you have made me to serve with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.
25 I, even I, am he that blots out your transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember your sins.
26 Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare you, that you mayest be justified.
27 Your first father has sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me.
28 Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.

Isaiah 44
1 Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen:
2 Thus says the LORD that made you, and formed you from the womb, which will help you; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and you, Jesurun, whom I have chosen.
3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring:
4 And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.
5 One shall say, I am the LORD’s; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the LORD, and surname himself by the name of Israel.
6 Thus says the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
7 And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them show unto them.
8 Fear you not, neither be afraid: have not I told you from that time, and have declared it? you are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.
9 They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.
10 Who has formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?
11 Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together.
12 The smith with the tongs both works in the coals, and fashions it with hammers, and works it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength fails: he drinks no water, and is faint.
13 The carpenter stretches out his rule; he marks it out with a line; he fits it with planes, and he marks it out with the compass, and makes it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.
14 He hews him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengthens for himself among the trees of the forest: he plants an ash, and the rain does nourish it.
15 Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindles it, and bakes bread; yea, he makes a god, and worships it; he makes it a graven image, and falls down thereto.
16 He burns part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eats flesh; he roasts roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warms himself, and says, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:
17 And the residue thereof he makes a god, even his graven image: he falls down unto it, and worships it, and prays unto it, and says, Deliver me; for you are my god. [Even when knowing their ways are totally corrupted, they continue in them and therefore remain ignorant of God.]
18 They have not known nor understood: for he has shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
19 And none considers in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?
20 He feeds on ashes: a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?
21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for you are my servant: I have formed you; you are my servant: O Israel, you shall not be forgotten of me.
22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed you.
23 Sing, O you heavens; for the LORD has done it: shout, you lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
24 Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, and he that formed you from the womb, I am the LORD that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by myself;
25 That frustrates the tokens of the liars, and makes diviners mad; that turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish;
26 That confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; that says to Jerusalem, You shall be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah, You shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed places thereof:
27 That says to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up your rivers:
28 That says of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, You shall be built; and to the temple, Your foundation shall be laid.

Isiah 45
1 Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
2 I will go before you, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
3 And I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the LORD, which call you by your name, am the God of Israel.
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called you by your name: I have surnamed you, though you have not known me.
5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded you, though you have not known me:
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
8 Drop down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.
9 Woe unto him that strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it, What make you? or your work, He has no hands?
10 Woe unto him that says unto his father, What beget you? or to the woman, What have you brought forth?
11 Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command you me.
12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
13 I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, says the LORD of hosts.
14 Thus says the LORD, The labor of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto you, and they shall be yours: they shall come after you; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto you, they shall make supplication unto you, saying, Surely God is in you; and there is none else, there is no God.
15 Truly you are a God that hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior.
16 They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols.
17 But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: you shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.
18 For thus says the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he has established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek you me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.
20 Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.
21 Tell you, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who has declared this from ancient time? who has told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.
22 Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
24 Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
25 In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.

Psalms 32
1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
5 I acknowledge my sin unto you, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto you in a time when you may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.
7 You are my hiding place; you shall preserve me from trouble; you shall compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I will guide you with mine eye.
9 Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto you.
10 Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about.
11 Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, you righteous: and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart.

Blessed is the man whose strength is in You; in whose heart are the ways of them.

Today’s title is Psalms 84:5 and tells of the strength that comes from knowing the LORD’s ways, which is the knowledge of God and having the wisdom to follow His higher way. The word “ways” is from the Hebrew word mcillah, meaning a thoroughfare or a staircase. This higher way shows us the steps by which we have descended, and thereby reveal the way of our return.

As we’ve seen, the steps (or degrees) are alluded to in the name Assyria, meaning steps or degrees by which we descend away from the LORD into insanity (without understanding and void of reality). This cognizance is found in the word of God telling of king Hezekiah and his, Israel’s, and Judah’s descent into depravity and desolation. When describing Hezekiah’s repentance and return, by the same steps, it is spoken of as the sun returning ten degrees backward, just as Assyria is describing the descent of the sun (light shined – understanding taught) by degrees (as if by the step in a staircase).

This description of Assyria, in a pattern, is telling of the descent of God’s people, this nation under God, into communism, and steps through which it occurred. Before posting these chapters, we must look at other uses of the word mcillah, which give us an understanding of the concept.

It (mcillah) appears twice in Isaiah, Isaiah 7:3 & 36:2, in speaking of the upper pool in the “highway” of the fuller’s field, the latter occurrence also recorded in 2 Kings 18:17. The word “upper” is the Hebrew word ‘elyown, most often rendered the Most High, here speaking of God’s word (hearing His advice above all others) and the words (advice) of those (the gods of this world) who put themselves in His place. Isaiah only used the word one other time, in Isaiah 14:14, in describing Lucifer, the false morning star.

Isaiah 14
3 And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear, and from the hard bondage wherein you were made to serve,
4 That you shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
5 The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, and the scepter of the rulers.
6 He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hinder.
7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.
8 Yea, the fir trees rejoice at you, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since you are laid down, no feller is come up against us.
9 Hell from beneath is moved for you to meet you at your coming: it stirs up the dead for you, even all the chief ones of the earth; it has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
10 All they shall speak and say unto you, Are you also become weak as we? are you become like unto us?
11 Your pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of your viols: the worm is spread under you, and the worms cover you.
12 How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer [the false morning star, the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, meaning the lies of the false prophets, the abominations that have caused the desolation – which created the confusion and insanity that now rules over the world], son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!
13 For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High [‘elyown].
15 Yet you shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 They that see you shall narrowly look upon you, and consider you, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet.
20 You shall not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, and slain your people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.
21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
22 For I will rise up against them, says the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, says the LORD.
23 I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, says the LORD of hosts.
24 The LORD of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
25 That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
27 For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
28 In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.

When the LORD says, in verse 19 above, the king of Babylon, who He also calls (Lucifer) the false morning star, will be as a carcass “trodden” under foot, He uses the Hebrew word buwc. It is the same word used, in verse 25, to say of the Assyrian on His mountains, in His land, He will “tread” him under-foot. The word (buwc) is only used two other times in Isaiah, Isaiah 63:6 & 18, a chapter speaking of this same treading down. As in the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field, these are speaking of the advice of men as the way, the steps, into degeneration, as opposed to the advice of the Most High as steps to elevation us in the fuller’s field.

Malachi 3
1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, he shall come, says the LORD of hosts.
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, says the LORD of hosts.
6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.
7 Even from the days of your fathers you are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, says the LORD of hosts. But you said, Wherein shall we return?
8 Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you say, Wherein have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings.
9 You are cursed with a curse: for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.
10 Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, says the LORD of hosts.
12 And all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightsome land, says the LORD of hosts.
13 Your words have been stout against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, What have we spoken so much against you?
14 You have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?
15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
16 Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.
17 And they shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him.
18 Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.

Malachi 4
1 For, behold, the day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
3 And you shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the LORD of hosts.
4 Remember you the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah [Jehovah is God – the destroyer of false prophets] the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Isaiah 63
1 Who is this that comes from Edom [in the midst of His enemies], with dyed garments from Bozrah [in the sheepfold]? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
2 Wherefore are you red in your apparel, and your garments like him that treads in the wine-fat?
3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.
4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.
5 And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
6 And I will tread [buwc] down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.
7 I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD, and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses.
8 For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Savior.
9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
10 But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.
11 Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his holy Spirit within him?
12 That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?
13 That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?
14 As a beast goes down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest: so did you lead your people, to make yourself a glorious name.
15 Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of your holiness and of your glory: where is your zeal and your strength, the sounding of your bowels and of your mercies toward me? are they restrained?
16 Doubtless you are our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: you, O LORD, are our father, our redeemer; your name is from everlasting.
17 O LORD, why have you made us to err from your ways, and hardened our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance.
18 The people of your holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.
19 We are yours: you never bare rule over them; they were not called by your name.


The explanation of mcillah, the highway, the way of elevation, appears in Proverbs 16:17 and Jeremiah 31:21, each the only time the word is used in these books. Both speak of the way of the LORD, His advice as steps to clean (elevate) us, as opposed to the advice of man and the accompanying steps into hell.


Proverbs 16
1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weighs the spirits.
3 Commit your works unto the LORD, and your thoughts shall be established.
4 The LORD has made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
5 Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
6 By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.
7 When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
8 Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.
9 A man’s heart devises his way: but the LORD directs his steps.
10 A divine sentence is in the lips of the king: his mouth transgresses not in judgment.
11 A just weight and balance are the LORD’s: all the weights of the bag are his work.
12 It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness.
13 Righteous lips are the delight of kings; and they love him that speaks right.
14 The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will pacify it.
15 In the light of the king’s countenance is life; and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain.
16 How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver!
17 The highway [mcillah] of the upright is to depart from evil: he that keeps his way preserves his soul.
18 Pride goes before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
19 Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.
20 He that handles a matter wisely shall find good: and whoso trusts in the LORD, happy is he.
21 The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and the sweetness of the lips increase learning.
22 Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that has it: but the instruction of fools is folly.
23 The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and adds learning to his lips.
24 Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.
25 There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
26 He that labors labors for himself; for his mouth craves it of him.
27 An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire.
28 A froward man [who twists and perverts truth] sows strife: and a whisperer separates chief friends.
29 A violent man entices his neighbor, and leads him into the way that is not good.
30 He shuts his eyes to devise froward [twisted and perverted] things: moving his lips he brings evil to pass.
31 The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.
32 He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city.
33 The lot is cast into the lap [the circumstance of the moment, seemingly occurs by chance]; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.

Jeremiah 31
1 At the same time, says the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.
2 Thus says the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.
3 The LORD has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you.
4 Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: you shall again be adorned with your tabrets, and shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry.
5 You shall yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things.
6 For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise you, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God.
7 For thus says the LORD; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish you, praise you, and say, O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.
8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travails with child together: a great company shall return thither.
9 They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, O you nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.
11 For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.
12 Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.
13 Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
14 And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says the LORD.
15 Thus says the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.
16 Thus says the LORD; Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears: for your work shall be rewarded, says the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
17 And there is hope in your end, says the LORD, that your children shall come again to their own border.
18 I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn you me, and I shall be turned; for you are the LORD my God.
19 Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.
20 Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, says the LORD.
21 Set you up waymarks, make you high heaps: set your heart toward the highway [mcillah], even the way which you went: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these your cities.
22 How long will you go about, O you backsliding daughter? for the LORD has created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.
23 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity; The LORD bless you, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness.
24 And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof together, husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks.
25 For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.
26 Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me.
27 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.
28 And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, says the LORD.
29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eats the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
31 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, says the LORD:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
35 Thus says the LORD, which gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divides the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:
36 If those ordinances depart from before me, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
37 Thus says the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD.
38 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel [God’s favored] unto the gate of the corner [the turning].
39 And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb [he shall heal their wound], and shall compass about to Goath [He shall lead them back from their descent].
40 And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron [their words of the darkness, ignorance that produced death], unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east [when they turn toward His strength in the sun rising], shall be holy unto the LORD; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever.

Hereafter is the passage describing the descent into ignorance, when the Assyrian shows up and we see the step into degeneration.

2 Kings 17
1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years.
2 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him.
3 Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents.
4 And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.
5 Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7 For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,
8 And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
9 And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.
10 And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree:
11 And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger:
12 For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, You shall not do this thing.
13 Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn you from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
14 Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God.
15 And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.
16 And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.
17 And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
18 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
19 Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.
20 And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
21 For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin.
22 For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them;
23 Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.
24 And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.
25 And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.
26 Wherefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which you have removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he has sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land.
27 Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom you brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.
28 Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.
29 Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.
30 And the men of Babylon made Succothbenoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima,
31 And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
32 So they feared the LORD, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.
33 They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.
34 Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the LORD, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel;
35 With whom the LORD had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them:
36 But the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall you fear, and him shall you worship, and to him shall you do sacrifice.
37 And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, you shall observe to do for evermore; and you shall not fear other gods.
38 And the covenant that I have made with you you shall not forget; neither shall you fear other gods.
39 But the LORD your God you shall fear; and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.
40 Howbeit they did not hearken, but they did after their former manner.
41 So these nations feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.


And the steps elevating us out of the degenerate state.

Isaiah 38
1 In those days was Hezekiah [strengthened by Jehovah] sick unto death. And Isaiah [Jehovah’s Salvation] the prophet the son of Amoz [{by renewing his} strength – what is spoken of ending Isaiah 40 and beginning Isaiah 41] came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set your house in order: for you shall die, and not live.
2 Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,
3 And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
4 Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,
5 Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears: behold, I will add unto your days fifteen years.
6 And I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city.
7 And this shall be a sign unto you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has spoken;
8 Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.
9 The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness:
10 I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave [Sheol – the gates of hell]: I am deprived of the residue of my years.
11 I said, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
12 Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night will you make an end of me.
13 I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night will you make an end of me.
14 Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.
15 What shall I say [the turning point – our word take us from hell into life]? he has both spoken unto me, and himself has done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.
16 O LORD, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so will you recover me, and make me to live.
17 Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but you have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for you have cast all my sins behind your back.
18 For the grave [Sheol – hell] cannot praise you, death can not celebrate you: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for your truth.
19 The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known your truth.
20 The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.
21 For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.
22 Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up [by steps] to the house of the LORD?

The answer is given in the following chapters, 39 telling of the total desolation that would follow, and 40 thru 45 the enlightenment that straightens what became crooked, the renewal of strength, and the rebuilding.

Psalm 56
1 Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up; he fighting daily oppresseth me.
2 Mine enemies would daily swallow me up: for they be many that fight against me, O you Most High.
3 What time I am afraid, I will trust in you.
4 In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
5 Every day they wrest my words [wrestle with – as in 2 Peter 3:16, to their own apoleia]: all their thoughts are against me for evil.
6 They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.
7 Shall they escape by iniquity? in your anger cast down the people, O God.
8 You tellest my wanderings: put you my tears into your bottle: are they not in your book?
9 When I cry unto you, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me.
10 In God will I praise his word: in the LORD will I praise his word.
11 In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.
12 Your vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto you.
13 For you have delivered my soul from death: will not you deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

The LORD shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion: rule you in the midst of your enemies.

The above speaks of when the LORD (Jehovah) set His chosen ruler (as in The President of this Nation under God) to rule in the midst of a people who would boo him. The title, Psalms 110:2, comes after verse 1 tells of Jehovah (the LORD) speaking to ‘adown (the ruler over His people), saying, “sit you on My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

As we have seen in previous discussions, the right hand of the LORD is where His power resides (which the enemies can’t understand or overcome, no matter how many lies they heap against it.)

Psalms 110
1 The LORD said unto my LORD [Jehovah saying to the President], Sit you at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.
2 The LORD shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion: rule you in the midst of your enemies.
3 Your people shall be willing in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: you have the dew of your youth.
4 The LORD has sworn, and will not repent, You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
5 The LORD at your right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
6 He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.
7 He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.

Men in church and state, false prophets, false preachers, and false teachers, have all turned against the LORD, the President, and against the Son and children the Father has chosen, declared, and made kings and priests in the order of Melchisedec. The rod of the LORD, which He has put in my and our right hand, is the scepter to rule, preach, and teach His truth.

Isaiah 11
1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. [God’s people shall be among those whose venom is in their words, and they shall have no power to hurt them.]
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain [because there the LORD has raised up a brazen serpent to combat them]: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea [as the Father’s words cover the masses through the rod of His mouth and in His hand].
10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign [nec – the pole upon which the serpent is raised] of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria [from among those who have descended by degrees into godless communism], and from Egypt [from the captivity, held under corrupt ideas], and from Pathros [from their own interpretations], and from Cush [from ignorance], and from Elam [from eternity], and from Shinar [their sleep in death], and from Hamath [from their fortresses where they have built a wall of lies], and from the islands of the sea [from the dry places that are without My {the Father’s} word].
12 And he shall set up an ensign [nec] for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
13 The envy also of Ephraim [God’s people upon who this second blessing, His word, has come] shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah [the leader of God’s people, His elect remnant who He has first awakened from their sleep] shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines [those who have been as strangers and invader among us] toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom [the enemies among us] and Moab [at the gates of hell]; and the children of Ammon [the children of the renowned preachers – those who formerly exalted themselves above God] shall obey them.
15 And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea [utterly destroy the words that have held the masses captive in blinding ignorance]; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river [by His Mighty Spirit He has moved {His word by His mouth and hand} against the words flowing to the masses], and shall smite it in the seven streams [the ignorance flowing from the churches], and make men go over dry-shod [they shall cross into the light once these words of ignorance are dried up].
16 And there shall be an highway [a ways raised up by the LORD] for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

As we have many times seen, this rod of my and our mouth, the rod in the LORD’s right hand, is the understanding that can and does only come from Him. As we know, it is His word through many writers, passed forward, reserved to be revealed, comprehended, to quicken His people to life, now at the time of need, in this evilest generation. That is the difference between the sons (children) and the prophets: the sons, logically beginning through the first begotten from the dead, are given the full understanding, whereas the prophets and angels were/are only given small parts. This full understanding, when received as the light into darkness, correction out of ignorance, is the same power to become His children, given to us to be freely given.

John 1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
9 That was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spoke, He that comes after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.
16 And of his fullness [of understanding] have all we received, and grace for grace.
17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth [the fully assembled message] came by Jesus Christ.
18 No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.
19 And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?
20 And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.
21 And they asked him, What then? Are you Elijah? And he said, I am not. Are you that prophet? And he answered, No.
22 Then said they unto him, Who are you? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What say you of yourself?
23 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the LORD, as said the prophet Isaiah [Isaiah 40:3 thru 5, which goes on to tell of the glory of the LORD revealed, in this straightening, to all flesh].
24 And they which were sent were of the Pharisees [those who have divide God’s people into many sects, by their crooked {corrupt – leavened} teaching and leading].
25 And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptize you then, if you be not that Christ, nor Elijah, neither that prophet?
26 John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there stands one among you, whom you know not;
27 He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.
28 These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan [the house which crosses over the river, the words of men, that carries all into death], where John was baptizing.
29 The next day John sees Jesus coming unto him, and says, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
30 This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.
31 And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.
32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove [the LORD unknown, seen coming as Jonah {the name meaning the dove} as the sign of the end {ensign}], and it abode upon him.
33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizes with the Holy Ghost.
34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.

Hebrews 1
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
4 Being made so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
6 And again, when he brings in the first-begotten into the world, he says, And let all the angels of God worship him.
7 And of the angels he says, Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
8 But unto the Son he says, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.
10 And, You, LORD, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of your hands:
11 They shall perish; but you remain; and they all shall wax old as does a garment;
12 And as a vesture shall you fold them up, and they shall be changed: but you are the same, and your years shall not fail.
13 But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool?
14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

Hebrews 2
1 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
2 For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward;
3 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the LORD, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
4 God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
5 For unto the angels has he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
6 But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man that you visit him?
7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of your hands:
8 You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.
9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11 For both he that sanctifies [separates us from corruption] and they who are sanctified [separated from corruption] are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
12 Saying, I will declare your name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto you.
13 And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God has given me.
14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
16 For truly he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
17 Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
18 For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to succor [rescue] them that are tempted.

2 Samuel 22
1 And David spoke unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul:
2 And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
3 The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence.
4 I will call on the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.
5 When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid;
6 The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me;
7 In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God: and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears.
8 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth.
9 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
10 He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet.
11 And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
12 And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies.
13 Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled.
14 The LORD thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered his voice.
15 And he sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and discomfited them.
16 And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
17 He sent from above, he took me; he drew me out of many waters;
18 He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me: for they were too strong for me.
19 They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.
20 He brought me forth also into a large place: he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
21 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands has he recompensed me.
22 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
23 For all his judgments were before me: and as for his statutes, I did not depart from them.
24 I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity.
25 Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye sight.
26 With the merciful you will show yourself merciful, and with the upright man you will show yourself upright.
27 With the pure you will show yourself pure; and with the froward [those who twist and pervert truth – the false prophets, false preachers and teachers, the fake news media, and the lying politicos] you will show yourself unsavory.
28 And the afflicted people you will save: but your eyes are upon the haughty, that you may bring them down.
29 For you are my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.
30 For by you I have run through a troop: by my God have I leaped over a wall.
31 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
32 For who is God, save the LORD? and who is a rock, save our God?
33 God is my strength and power: and he makes my way perfect.
34 He makes my feet like hinds’ feet: and sets me upon my high places.
35 He teaches my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
36 You have also given me the shield of your salvation: and your gentleness has made me great.
37 You have enlarged my steps under me; so that my feet did not slip.
38 I have pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them; and turned not again until I had consumed them.
39 And I have consumed them, and wounded them, that they could not arise: yea, they are fallen under my feet.
40 For you have girded me with strength to battle: them that rose up against me have you subdued under me.
41 You have also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me.
42 They looked, but there was none to save; even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
43 Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them abroad.
44 You also have delivered me from the strivings of my people, you have kept me to be head of the heathen: a people which I knew not shall serve me.
45 Strangers shall submit themselves unto me: as soon as they hear, they shall be obedient unto me.
46 Strangers shall fade away, and they shall be afraid out of their close places.
47 The LORD lives; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation.
48 It is God that avenges me, and that brings down the people under me.
49 And that brings me forth from mine enemies: you also have lifted me up on high above them that rose up against me: you have delivered me from the violent man.
50 Therefore I will give thanks unto you, O LORD, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto your name.
51 He is the tower of salvation for his king: and shews mercy to his anointed, unto David, and to his seed for evermore.

2 Samuel 23
1 Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,
2 The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and his word was in my tongue.
3 The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
4 And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.
5 Although my house be not so with God; yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure [the promised sure mercies of David; that the LORD would raise up and correct His seed, who He would lift to sit on His throne, ruling as He rules]: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.
6 But the sons of Belial [the wicked] shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands:
7 But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff [‘ets] of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.

Jeremiah 46 (where the LORD began our day), in verse 21, tells of the visitation, verse 22 then saying it is as the voice of a serpent, which it goes on to says will be sent against (the tongue of) Egypt, as if an ax in the hand of hewers of wood. The “wood,” rendered from the Hebrew word ‘ets, is the staff in these men’s hands, the words they speak, as when Jannes and Jambres cast down their staffs to resist Moses. As we know, Moses’ staff (Aaron’s staff in his hand) became a serpent that swallowed up their staffs that had become serpents; here referred to as hewing down the ‘ets of those holding God’s people captive. Jeremiah 46 begins by telling of the river of Egypt that comes up to cover all the earth. The serpent that comes as the rivers Chebar (God’s word from his mouth and hand) against it, as described in Ezekiel 43:3, is the pattern seen, which swallows up these men’s words.

2 Timothy 2
19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The LORD knows them that are his. And, let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
20 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor.
21 If a man, therefore, purge himself from these [verssels of dishonor], he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.
22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the LORD out of a pure heart [a pure, uncorrupted, mind, by which we see the LORD – Matthew 5:8].
23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes [are meant to cause an endless argument, as in the ever agitated and swirling waters].
24 And the servant of the LORD must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
25 In meekness [see Matthew 5:5] instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive [as in Egypt] by him at his will.

2 Timothy 3
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive [as in Egypt] silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate [without proof] concerning the faith.
9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as their’s also was.

Jeremiah 46
20 Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction comes; it comes out of the north.
21 Also her hired men are in the midst of her like fatted bullocks [Egypt and these men are here defines as the idol set in God’s place – the calves]; for they also are turned back, and are fled away together: they did not stand, because the day of their calamity was come upon them, and the time of their visitation.
22 The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood.
23 They shall cut down her forest, says the LORD, though it cannot be searched; because they are more than the grasshoppers, and are innumerable.
24 The daughter of Egypt shall be confounded; she shall be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.
25 The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says; Behold, I will punish the multitude of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with their gods, and their kings; even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him:
26 And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, says the LORD.
27 But fear not you, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save you from afar off, and your seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.
28 Fear you not, O Jacob my servant, says the LORD: for I am with you; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven you: but I will not make a full end of you, but correct you in measure; yet will I not leave you wholly unpunished.

Ezekiel 43
1 Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east:
2 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.
3 And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city: and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.
4 And the glory of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east.
5 So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house.
6 And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me.
7 And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcasses of their kings in their high places.
8 In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger.
9 Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcasses of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever.
10 You son of man, show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern.
11 And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, show them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them.
12 This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.

Psalms 8
1 O LORD, our LORD, how excellent is your name in all the earth! who have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings have you ordained strength because of your enemies, that you might still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;
4 What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you visit him?
5 For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet:
7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD our LORD, how excellent is your name in all the earth!

Psalms 2
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sits in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
7 I will declare the decree: the LORD has said unto me, You are my Son; this day have I begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I shall give you the heathen for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
10 Be wise now therefore, O you kings: be instructed, you judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

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Therefore thus will I do unto you, O Israel: and because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.

(In today’s continuation, it is again necessary to have laid the foundation of reading the previous posts, through which comes clarity of vision.) The LORD begins in Amos 4:12, the title, describing the event He depicts in verse 13, and clarifies in chapter 5, which was discussed in the previous post. 

In verse 13 the LORD speaks of declaring to man his thoughts, then of making the morning darkness and treading on the high places of the earth. These are the high places He describes in Amos 5:5, where idols were set in His place and where the waters are always agitated and swilling. These high places are the mountains of Samaria He addresses in Amos 4:1, calling those inhabiting them the “kine of Bashan,” a name appearing to be derived from bashac, meaning and referring to the LORD’s “threading,” spoken of in verse 13.

Amos 4
1 Hear this word, you kine [cow, for the women – as in Shechem, the family of Abimelech’s mother] of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.
2 The LORD God has sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks [catch you by the words of your mouth], and your posterity with fishhooks.
3 And you shall go out [from among them] at the breaches, every cow [the women {church} upon whose shoulders is the fuel of the fires they start] at that which is before her; and you shall cast them into the palace [the places of those who lead you], says the LORD.
4 Come to Bethel [where the idols are set in God’s place], and transgress; at Gilgal [where the waters are always agitated and swirling] multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:
5 And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven [mixed with your created corruption], and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this like you, O you children of Israel, says the LORD God.
6 And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.
7 And also I have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.
8 So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.
9 I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.
10 I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.
11 I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.
12 Therefore thus will I do unto you, O Israel: and because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.
13 For, lo, he that forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares unto man what is his thought, that makes the morning darkness, and treads upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.

Amos 5
1 Hear you this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.
3 For thus says the LORD God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave a hundred, and that which went forth by a hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.
4 For thus says the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek you me, and you shall live:
5 But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to naught.
6 Seek the LORD, and you shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.
7 You who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,
8 Seek him that makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:
9 That strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.
10 They hate him that rebukes in the gate, and they abhor him that speaks uprightly.
11 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and you take from him burdens of wheat: you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink wine of them.
12 For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.
13 Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.
14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as you have spoken.
15 Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
16 Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD, says thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.
17 And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through you, says the LORD.
18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.
19 As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.
20 Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
22 Though you offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.
23 Take you away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of your viols.
24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
25 Have you offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
26 But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images [tselem], the star of your god, which you made to yourselves.
27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, says the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.

When the LORD says, in Amos 4:13 above, He has made the morning darkness, he is speaking of the light of the Sunrise coming, and men are unaware that it is His presence manifested in the understanding He brings. This is why he treads down the high place where the idols are in His place: because they are what have made men ignorant and blind to Him. We see this as He, in Amos 5:4 & 5, says to seek Him but not in these places where these idols are, because He can’t be found there.

The LORD, in the passage surrounding and including Psalms 68:15 & 22, speaks of when He recovers Bashan. There, in verse 14, He speaks of when He scatters the kings thereof, and it became as white (pure) as the snow of Salmon. This name, meaning shade as in a phantom (a shadow of the true), here, in context, speaking of when the place of idols, the false images in God’s place, are made pure and the LORD, the true object of our worship, is there restored to His rightful place. The word Salmon is from, tselem, is the word rendered “images,” in Amos 5:26, when speaking of the idols, the star (men) made a god, which caused the captivity beyond Damascus.

Psalm 68
1 Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that hate him flee before him.
2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
3 But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.
4 Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rides upon the heavens by his name Jah, and rejoice before him.
5 A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
6 God set the solitary in families: he brings out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.
7 O God, when you went forth before your people, when you did march through the wilderness; Selah:
8 The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
9 You, O God, did send a plentiful rain, whereby you did confirm your inheritance, when it was weary.
10 Your congregation has dwelt therein: you, O God, have prepared of your goodness for the poor.
11 The LORD gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.
12 Kings of armies did flee apace: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil.
13 Though you have lien among the pots, yet shall you be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.
14 When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was white as snow in Salmon.
15 The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill as the hill of Bashan.
16 Why leap you, you high hills? this is the hill which God desires to dwell in; yea, the LORD will dwell in it for ever.
17 The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the LORD is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.
18 You have ascended on high, you have led captivity captive: you have received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.
19 Blessed be the LORD, who daily loads us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.
20 He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the LORD belong the issues from death.
21 But God shall wound the head of his enemies [as he did Abimelech – who contended for Baal], and the hairy scalp of such an one as goes on still in his trespasses.
22 The LORD said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea [from the belly of the dragon {whale}]:
23 That your foot may be dipped in the blood of your enemies, and the tongue of your dogs in the same.
24 They have seen your goings, O God; even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary.
25 The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels.
26 Bless you God in the congregations, even the LORD, from the fountain of Israel.
27 There is little Benjamin with their ruler, the princes of Judah and their council, the princes of Zebulun, and the princes of Naphtali.
28 Your God has commanded your strength: strengthen, O God, that which you have wrought for us.
29 Because of your temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto you.
30 Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till every one submit himself with pieces of silver: scatter you the people that delight in war.
31 Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.
32 Sing unto God, you kingdoms of the earth; O sing praises unto the LORD; Selah:
33 To him that rides upon the heavens of heavens, which were of old; lo, he does send out his voice, and that a mighty voice.
34 Ascribe you strength unto God: his excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds.
35 O God, you are terrible out of your holy places: the God of Israel is he that gives strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.

The name Salmon leads us to Judges 9, where in verse 48 it is rendered Zalmon, the passage telling of Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal, names meaning my father is king and Baal will contend. Mount Zalmon is telling of the image (Baal – Bel) contending, in the pattern of the fraud discussed in the prior post (Daniel 14), which is the shadow that has now replaced the true. It is described in Judges 8:33, saying, “And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god.”

Baal-berith means they made a covenant with Baal, which is immediately followed by Abimelech killing 70 of his brother, all sons of Gideon (who is Jerubbaal) except Jotham (name meaning he is perfect with Jehovah). Abimelech, unlike other Judges, made Himself king over Shechem, and then went to war with, set fire to and killed, those who weren’t with him. This pattern is of the false worship described as mount Zalmon, where Abimelech cut down a bough and put it on His shoulder (bough and shoulder are the meaning of Shechem – alluding to the burden that Baal couldn’t deliver – see Isaiah 46:1 & 2, and Jeremiah 51:44 & 45). He then told all his followers to do as they saw him do, which they did, and they laid the boughs at the tower of Shechem. This tower (pulpit) is where all the men of Shechem, who weren’t with Abimelech, were holdup, and all, men and women, were there killed.

After this, we are told there was another strong tower in the city (Thebez), and when they went to do the same to it, a woman cast down a piece of a millstone and it hit Abimelech in his head. The last verse says this was God returning the evil Abimelech had done to his brothers, and all the evil of the men of Shechem, upon his (Abimelech’s) head. “And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.” Revelation 18:21

Friends, the point is the false worship of those who have replaced God with their idols, the false prophets, false preachers, and false teachers in all the churches, and in the world, set fire to any who refuse to join them. These are the fires Peter speaks of in 2 Peter 3, caused by these men’s corrupt ideas (stoicheion – elements), creations they have put in the place of God. Their ideas and their works melt away and burn up in the fires ending the old world (age) of darkness (ignorance). But we look for a new world, an age wherein dwells righteousness, for which the LORD has long-suffered, not willing that any should perish, but that they would all come to repentance – which is the likeness of the true living, life-giving, God, Spirit and truth, not just an image (a phantom that is an illusion).

2 Peter 3
1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2 That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the LORD and Savior:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The LORD is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the LORD will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our LORD is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Judges 8
33 And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god.
34 And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:
35 Neither shewed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel.

Judges 9
1 And Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem unto his mother’s brethren, and communed with them, and with all the family of the house of his mother’s father, saying,
2 Speak, I pray you, in the ears of all the men of Shechem, Whether is better for you, either that all the sons of Jerubbaal, which are threescore and ten persons, reign over you, or that one reign over you? remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.
3 And his mother’s brethren spoke of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words: and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, He is our brother.
4 And they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith, wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light persons, which followed him.
5 And he went unto his father’s house at Ophrah, and slew his brethren the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons, upon one stone: notwithstanding yet Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself.
6 And all the men of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo, and went, and made Abimelech king, by the plain of the pillar that was in Shechem.
7 And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, you men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.
8 The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign you over us.
9 But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?
10 And the trees said to the fig tree, Come you, and reign over us.
11 But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?
12 Then said the trees unto the vine, Come you, and reign over us.
13 And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheers God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?
14 Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come you, and reign over us.
15 And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth you anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.
16 Now therefore, if you have done truly and sincerely, in that you have made Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done unto him according to the deserving of his hands;
17 (For my father fought for you, and adventured his life far, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian:
18 And you are risen up against my father’s house this day, and have slain his sons, threescore and ten persons, upon one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his maidservant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother;)
19 If you then have dealt truly and sincerely with Jerubbaal and with his house this day, then rejoice you in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you:
20 But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech.
21 And Jotham ran away, and fled, and went to Beer, and dwelt there, for fear of Abimelech his brother.
22 When Abimelech had reigned three years over Israel,
23 Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech:
24 That the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which slew them; and upon the men of Shechem, which aided him in the killing of his brethren.
25 And the men of Shechem set liers in wait for him in the top of the mountains, and they robbed all that came along that way by them: and it was told Abimelech.
26 And Gaal the son of Ebed came with his brethren, and went over to Shechem: and the men of Shechem put their confidence in him.
27 And they went out into the fields, and gathered their vineyards, and trode the grapes, and made merry, and went into the house of their god, and did eat and drink, and cursed Abimelech.
28 And Gaal the son of Ebed said, Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? is not he the son of Jerubbaal? and Zebul his officer? serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem: for why should we serve him?
29 And would to God this people were under my hand! then would I remove Abimelech. And he said to Abimelech, Increase your army, and come out.
30 And when Zebul the ruler of the city heard the words of Gaal the son of Ebed, his anger was kindled.
31 And he sent messengers unto Abimelech privily, saying, Behold, Gaal the son of Ebed and his brethren be come to Shechem; and, behold, they fortify the city against you.
32 Now therefore up by night, you and the people that is with you, and lie in wait in the field:
33 And it shall be, that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, you shall rise early, and set upon the city: and, behold, when he and the people that is with him come out against you, then may you do to them as you shall find occasion.
34 And Abimelech rose up, and all the people that were with him, by night, and they laid wait against Shechem in four companies.
35 And Gaal the son of Ebed went out, and stood in the entering of the gate of the city: and Abimelech rose up, and the people that were with him, from lying in wait.
36 And when Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, Behold, there come people down from the top of the mountains. And Zebul said unto him, You seest the shadow of the mountains as if they were men.
37 And Gaal spoke again, and said, See there come people down by the middle of the land, and another company come along by the plain of Meonenim.
38 Then said Zebul unto him, Where is now your mouth, wherewith you said, Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him? is not this the people that you have despised? go out, I pray now, and fight with them.
39 And Gaal went out before the men of Shechem, and fought with Abimelech.
40 And Abimelech chased him, and he fled before him, and many were overthrown and wounded, even unto the entering of the gate.
41 And Abimelech dwelt at Arumah: and Zebul thrust out Gaal and his brethren, that they should not dwell in Shechem.
42 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the people went out into the field; and they told Abimelech.
43 And he took the people, and divided them into three companies, and laid wait in the field, and looked, and, behold, the people were come forth out of the city; and he rose up against them, and smote them.
44 And Abimelech, and the company that was with him, rushed forward, and stood in the entering of the gate of the city: and the two other companies ran upon all the people that were in the fields, and slew them.
45 And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt.
46 And when all the men of the tower of Shechem heard that, they entered into a hold of the house of the god Berith.
47 And it was told Abimelech, that all the men of the tower of Shechem were gathered together.
48 And Abimelech gat him up to mount Zalmon, he and all the people that were with him; and Abimelech took an ax in his hand, and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it, and laid it on his shoulder, and said unto the people that were with him, What you have seen me do, make haste, and do as I have done.
49 And all the people likewise cut down every man his bough, and followed Abimelech, and put them to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them; so that all the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women.
50 Then went Abimelech to Thebez, and encamped against Thebez, and took it.
51 But there was a strong tower within the city, and thither fled all the men and women, and all they of the city, and shut it to them, and gat them up to the top of the tower.
52 And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower to burn it with fire.
53 And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and all to brake his skull.
54 Then he called hastily unto the young man his armor-bearer, and said unto him, Draw your sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A women slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died.
55 And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man unto his place.
56 Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren:
57 And all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads: and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.

Psalms 41
1 Blessed is he that considers the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.
2 The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and you will not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.
3 The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: you will make all his bed in his sickness.
4 I said, LORD, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against you.
5 Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?
6 And if he come to see me, he speaks vanity: his heart gathers iniquity to itself; when he goes abroad, he tells it.
7 All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt.
8 An evil disease, say they, cleaves fast unto him: and now that he lies he shall rise up no more. [These men, who are merely images of the true, without His likeness, always find a reason to separate themselves from the LORD and His truth. John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.]
9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.
10 But you, O LORD, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them.
11 By this I know that you favor me, because mine enemy does not triumph over me.
12 And as for me, you uphold me in mine integrity, and set me before your face for ever.
13 Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.