[Note. The section numbers in this entry correspond to the numbers of the chapters in the King James Bible as follows: 16 = 44; 17 = 45; 18 = 47; 19 = 48; 20 = 51; 21 = 53; 22 = 55; 23 = 65; 24 = 66.]
16
Thus says Yahweh God, your redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the LORD who makes all things; who stretches out the heavens alone; who spreads abroad the earth by myself; who frustrates the oracles of the fortunetellers, and makes diviners mad; who turns wisemen backward, and makes their knowledge foolish. I say to my caravan: ‘You shall be inhabited.’ And I say to the cities of Eldorado: ‘You shall be built; I will raise up your decayed places.’ And I say to the deep: ‘Be dry. I will dry up your rivers.’ And I say of Cyrus, whom I shall make my Anointed One, the Messiah: ‘You are my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure.’”
17
Thus says the Lord Yahweh GOD to his Anointed Messiah, to Cyrus: “I hold your hand, and help you win. I will give you the treasures of darkness, so that you may know that I, Lord Yahweh, am the god of the caravan. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, Yahweh Peor, do all these things.”
18
Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Wonderland, sit on the ground. There is no throne, O Princess of Hearts, for you shall no more be called tender and delicate. Better put on your slave garb and start slaving. Slip into your whore garb and get whoring. You stole my caravansary’s wayfarers, and now I will cause you to be a slave and a whore. Your nakedness will be uncovered; your shame will be seen: I will take vengeance. Nevermore shall you be among the elite of great kingdoms.
I was frustrated with my people, so I abandoned them; and I allowed you to take them captive. But you abused them far more severely than I intended. You went too far.
Now therefore hear this, you spoiled brat. You have grown accustomed to living a carefree life in total security, and have said: “I shall never be a widow or lose my children.” Ah, behold, I will cause two things to crush you in an instant: widowhood and child-loss. Yes, evil is coming to get you; I will destroy you.
19
Listen, O pilgrims of the caravan! Long ago, I foretold many events that you should experience: they came out from my mouth. Then everything happened just as I predicted. Now, here is the next thing that I promise will occur:
You shall be freed from captivity. I shall redeem you.
(Remember when I was leading you through the waste howling wilderness? We came to the place called Fallout Rock, which is Lynch Peak. You all doubted whether I could save you. You assumed that you would all die from thirst. But what was the outcome? Look: I made a fresh spring flow from the stone, and soon a waterfall gushed forth.)
MORAL: There is no peace for the wicked.
20
Awake! awake! rise up in your strength, O Yahweh; awake! as in the ancient times and the olden days. You were the one who cut Rahab into pieces: you disembodied the Dragon of Chaos. You used her parts to make the world.
Also, was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, so that the wayfarers of your caravan could pass through the Red Ocean without wetting their feet?
Therefore, all sorrow and mourning shall flee away: for the redeemed people of the Volcano shall return, and run free with singing; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head. They shall obtain gladness and bliss.
21
Is there anyone out there still listening? I have something else to tell you:
A little sprig shall grow up into a tender plant. First, he shall be like one that has roots in dry ground with no nutriment: scrawny and ugly. If you were to behold this young sprout clinging to life, you would recoil from the sight; he admittedly looks pitiable.
So he is despised and rejected: a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief. We shall hide our faces from him, and give him no respect.
Yet it was our disease and distress that he was bearing. We presumed that he was stricken by God, and that the LORD smote him; that he was divinely afflicted on account of some awful crime that he committed. But it turns out that he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
We scattered away like sheep, in all directions; and the landlord made him pay all our debts in full. So now we are even with our creditors, free of all obligations: no one owes anything anymore, forever. This was accomplished automatically: nothing more is required of us; we need not even be aware of the occurrence. Just bask in the fortune.
He was oppressed and afflicted, but he did not open his mouth to complain or to defend himself: he went quietly like a sacrificial animal to the slaughterhouse.
By a horrible judgment, he was snatched away and imprisoned in a dungeon, whose wretchedness is indescribable. He was cut off out of the land of the living: he was stricken on account of the transgression of the caravan’s populace.
And the clergymen, the yogis and gurus, the rabbis, priests and pastors, all refused him honorable burial: instead, they tossed him in a pit with the wicked, into a mass grave along with those they deem evildoers.
He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him; so he put him to grief. Then, once his soul is cashed in to pay for all debt, he shall be allowed to see his children, and prolong his days, and the LORD shall cause his business plans to prosper.
Yahweh shall examine the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied, announcing: “By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will grant him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he has poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the criminals; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession on behalf of all debtors.”
22
Ho! every one that has thirst, come to the waters. And whoever has no money; come, buy, and eat. Yes, come, purchase wine and cuisine without money or price.
Why spend money for anything inedible? Why labor for what is unsatisfying? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in extravagance.
Seek the Volcano: for he is near, and you can find him. If you are doing wrong and acting inhumanely: stop! change! turn around! try something new: behave differently! For he will have mercy upon you: the Lord Yahweh GOD will abundantly pardon.
Listen to this message from the volcano of potential: My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Just as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and waters the earth, and makes grass grow and flowers bud, so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I desire, and it shall prosper in the thing that I sent it to do. So you shall transform and become joyful, and be led forth into peace: the mountains and the hills shall break out before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
23
Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. The former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create: for, behold, I create the caravan as a rejoicing, and her people as a joy.
And I will rejoice in the caravan, and joy in my outcasts: and the voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
No longer shall there be an infant nor an elderly wayfarer that does not live out his days.
24
She gave birth even before she went into labor. Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can the earth bring forth a new people in just one day? Shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as the caravan travailed, she brought forth her children!
A word from the Volcano: “Shall I, who invented childbirth, fail at delivering this Seed of Promise? Shall I who am always present during the intimate processes of coupling, conception, gestation, and bringing forth young, find difficulty in actuating my desired creation? Do you truly see me saying: ‘This is too hard; let me just quit and leave the womb shut’?”
Rejoice with the caravansary, and be glad with her, all you that love her: rejoice in ecstasy with her, that you may suck the breasts of her consolations and be satisfied; that you may milk out abundant delight from her glorious udder.
§
Behold, the Volcano comes with thick smoke and jags of lightning in his vortex, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render the marvels of his new creation with flames of fire: “I know the thoughts of all people everywhere,” says Lord Yahweh. “Now all nations and tongues shall gather; and they shall come, and see my glory. And I will set signs and wonders among them, and I will make myself known to the whole world: to everyone everywhere, all at once: to those nearby, and to those afar off, even out to the islands in the ocean. At last, the entire creation shall meet me face to face, and I shall enkindle every mind.”
No comments:
Post a Comment