The Berean Pursuit
"Now you, son of man, take a brick, place it before you, and draw on it the city of Jerusalem. Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides. Then take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between yourself and the city. Turn your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.
Then lie down on your left side and place the iniquity of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their iniquity for the number of days you lie on your side. For I have assigned to you 390 days, according to the number of years of their iniquity. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned to you 40 days, a day for each year. You must turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and prophesy against it.
Now behold, I will tie you up with ropes so you cannot turn from side to side until you have finished the days of your siege.
But take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. This is what you are to eat during the 390 days you lie on your side. You are to weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day, and you are to eat it at set times.
You are also to measure out a sixth of a hin of water to drink, and you are to drink it at set times. And you shall eat the food as you would a barley cake, after you bake it over dried human excrement in the sight of the people."
Then the LORD said, "This is how the Israelites will eat their defiled bread among the nations to which I will banish them."
"Ah, Lord GOD," I said, "I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have not eaten anything found dead or mauled by wild beasts. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth."
"Look," He replied, "I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that."
Then He told me, "Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure. So they will lack food and water; they will be appalled at the sight of one another wasting away in their iniquity.
"As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as a barber's razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair. When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.
But you are to take a few strands of hair and secure them in the folds of your garment. Again, take a few of these, throw them into the fire, and burn them. From there a fire will spread to the whole house of Israel.
This is what the Lord GOD says: 'This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. But she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations, and against My statutes worse than the countries around her. For her people have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.'
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: 'You have been more insubordinate than the nations around you; you have not walked in My statutes or kept My ordinances, nor have you even conformed to the ordinances of the nations around you.'
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: 'Behold, I Myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. Because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. As a result, fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.'
Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and abominations, I Myself will withdraw My favor; I will not look upon you with pity, nor will I spare you.
A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind them.
And when My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath against them, I will be appeased. And when I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, the LORD, in My zeal have spoken.
I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. So you will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging fury. I, the LORD, have spoken.
When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food. I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken."
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.
You are to say: 'O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! This is what the Lord GOD says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will cast down your slain before your idols. I will lay the corpses of the Israelites before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.
Wherever you live, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works blotted out. The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the LORD.
Yet I will leave a remnant, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the nations and throughout the lands.
Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me-how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations. And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not declare in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.
This is what the Lord GOD says: Clap your hands, stomp your feet, and cry out "Alas!" because of all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel, who will fall by sword and famine and plague. He who is far off will die by the plague, he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains will die by famine. So I will vent My fury upon them.
Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak-the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols. I will stretch out My hand against them, and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah. Then they will know that I am the LORD.'?"
A Psalm of Asaph.
God presides in the divine assembly;
He renders judgment among the gods:
"How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked?
Selah
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
uphold the rights of the afflicted and oppressed.
Rescue the weak and needy;
save them from the hand of the wicked.
They do not know or understand;
they wander in the darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I have said, 'You are gods;
you are all sons of the Most High.'
But like mortals you will die,
and like rulers you will fall."
Arise, O God, judge the earth,
for all the nations are Your inheritance.
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine ran out, Jesus' mother said to Him, "They have no more wine."
"Woman, why does this concern us?" Jesus replied. "My hour has not yet come."
His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever He tells you."
Now six stone water jars had been set there for the Jewish rites of purification. Each could hold from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told the servants, "Fill the jars with water."
So they filled them to the brim.
"Now draw some out," He said, "and take it to the master of the banquet."
They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not know where it was from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, "Everyone serves the fine wine first, and then the cheap wine after the guests are drunk. But you have saved the fine wine until now!"
Jesus performed this, the first of His signs, at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.
After this, He went down to Capernaum with His mother and brothers and His disciples, and they stayed there a few days.
When the Jewish Passover was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and money changers seated at their tables. So He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those selling doves He said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father's house into a marketplace!"
His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for Your house will consume Me."
On account of this, the Jews demanded, "What sign can You show us to prove Your authority to do these things?"
Jesus answered, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again."
"This temple took forty-six years to build," the Jews replied, "and You are going to raise it up in three days?"
But Jesus was speaking about the temple of His body. After He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this. Then they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
While He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the signs He was doing and believed in His name. But Jesus did not entrust Himself to them, for He knew them all. He did not need any testimony about man, for He knew what was in a man.