Today's Readings and Stuff -- Saturday, 29 November 2014

Wow.  The week has flown by, and I have remarkably little to show for the journey.  Dear Wife has been sick, almost constantly horizontal, since we got back from the brief Thanksgiving Day dinner at her nephew's place.  Says she's feeling a little bit better, but "better" is not the same as "good".  And she does not feel "good", even by her standards.    Lousy.
How lousy?  Well, this morning, 10-12 was calling hours for a cousin of her mother's who was a murder victim last week, with service at noon conducted by one of the Mormons in the extended family.  She was too sick to go, really too sick to do much of anything.  They've scheduled a candlelight vigil at the home of the deceased for Sunday evening, and I much doubt she'll be able to be there for that either.  Which does not help her emotional state, and that in turn does her physical condition no particular good. 
Beloved Elder Daughter called earlier, she's in the middle of a move.  She's been a English, as in ESL, teacher at a city school in the midwest.  The treasonous illegitimati that are running out country right now arranged to dump several thousand ILLEGAL ALIENS into that area just at the start of the school year.  She's been dealing with tatted-up gangbangers, some with gray hair, some pregnant, virtually all of them illiterate even in Spanish, and several who didn't speak Spanish either.  After being hospitalized TWICE for diseases conveyed by the unvaccinated invaders, and receiving death threats from them, she's quitting.  Now.  Out of medical isolation, and moving.  She and husband have a small house about two hours from the apartment she's been camping in -- they'd planned to sell the house and move back together in her apartment.  Now, nope.  Not much choice.  Incidentally, the school system she was in couldn't do much to help her:  they were, by virtue of the lousy dictators in Washington, prohibited from suspending, expelling, or arresting these ILLEGAL ALIENS.  Something about "disparate impact" or some such pack of lies.
Makes it very hard to be nice.  Very hard.
We know, personally, a fair number of people who immigrated to this country.  Dear Wife's father was born in Europe.  Younger Daughter's mother-in-law is an actual legal immigrant (now citizen) from the interior of Mexico.  Neither of my parents spoke English at home before going to school as kids.  And I have for more than 40 years dealt with people literally from all over the world, from Korea and Okinawa and Indonesia, to Guatemala, Ireland, Finland, Egypt, Nigeria, Israel, Lebanon, Greece, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Ukraine, and even the Armenians.  I'm not opposed to immigrants in theory.  Invaders are another matter, and  that is what these are.  Aiding and abetting that invasion is the act of a Benedict Arnold, not an American patriot.

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The Old Testament reading is chapters 41 and 42 in the writings of Ezekiel.  I remind you that this was during the time of the Captivity, a judgment upon the people when they decided to be like the nations around them, when THEY did not take the limits of the land seriously.  The ignored the border and became homogenized.  Wasn't supposed to work like that.  The results of that were Not Good, not fun to go through.
And yet, the Lord had not abandoned them.  Or we wouldn't have this account, and we would not have the New Testament at all either.  In many ways, the very existence of these prophecies is also a message of hope, an assurance that there will be a future.  Whatever they were going through, and by all accounts, some of those things were rough, there was light on the other side of the cloud.  Good reminder for us as well.

Ezekiel 41

1	Afterward he brought me to the temple, and measured the posts, six cubits broad on the one side, and six cubits broad on the other side, which was the breadth of the tabernacle.
2	And the breadth of the door was ten cubits; and the sides of the door were five cubits on the one side, and five cubits on the other side: and he measured the length thereof, forty cubits: and the breadth, twenty cubits.
3	Then went he inward, and measured the post of the door, two cubits; and the door, six cubits; and the breadth of the door, seven cubits.
4	So he measured the length thereof, twenty cubits; and the breadth, twenty cubits, before the temple: and he said unto me, This is the most holy place.
5	After he measured the wall of the house, six cubits; and the breadth of every side chamber, four cubits, round about the house on every side.
6	And the side chambers were three, one over another, and thirty in order; and they entered into the wall which was of the house for the side chambers round about, that they might have hold, but they had not hold in the wall of the house.
7	And there was an enlarging, and a winding about still upward to the side chambers: for the winding about of the house went still upward round about the house: therefore the breadth of the house was still upward, and so increased from the lowest chamber to the highest by the midst.
8	I saw also the height of the house round about: the foundations of the side chambers were a full reed of six great cubits.
9	The thickness of the wall, which was for the side chamber without, was five cubits: and that which was left was the place of the side chambers that were within.
10	And between the chambers was the wideness of twenty cubits round about the house on every side.
11	And the doors of the side chambers were toward the place that was left, one door toward the north, and another door toward the south: and the breadth of the place that was left was five cubits round about.
12	Now the building that was before the separate place at the end toward the west was seventy cubits broad; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick round about, and the length thereof ninety cubits.
13	So he measured the house, an hundred cubits long; and the separate place, and the building, with the walls thereof, an hundred cubits long;
14	Also the breadth of the face of the house, and of the separate place toward the east, an hundred cubits.
15	And he measured the length of the building over against the separate place which was behind it, and the galleries thereof on the one side and on the other side, an hundred cubits, with the inner temple, and the porches of the court;
16	The door posts, and the narrow windows, and the galleries round about on their three stories, over against the door, cieled with wood round about, and from the ground up to the windows, and the windows were covered;
17	To that above the door, even unto the inner house, and without, and by all the wall round about within and without, by measure.
18	And it was made with cherubims and palm trees, so that a palm tree was between a cherub and a cherub; and every cherub had two faces;
19	So that the face of a man was toward the palm tree on the one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side: it was made through all the house round about.
20	From the ground unto above the door were cherubims and palm trees made, and on the wall of the temple.
21	The posts of the temple were squared, and the face of the sanctuary; the appearance of the one as the appearance of the other.
22	The altar of wood was three cubits high, and the length thereof two cubits; and the corners thereof, and the length thereof, and the walls thereof, were of wood: and he said unto me, This is the table that is before the LORD.
23	And the temple and the sanctuary had two doors.
24	And the doors had two leaves apiece, two turning leaves; two leaves for the one door, and two leaves for the other door.
25	And there were made on them, on the doors of the temple, cherubims and palm trees, like as were made upon the walls; and there were thick planks upon the face of the porch without.
26	And there were narrow windows and palm trees on the one side and on the other side, on the sides of the porch, and upon the side chambers of the house, and thick planks.

Ezekiel 42

1	Then he brought me forth into the utter court, the way toward the north: and he brought me into the chamber that was over against the separate place, and which was before the building toward the north.
2	Before the length of an hundred cubits was the north door, and the breadth was fifty cubits.
3	Over against the twenty cubits which were for the inner court, and over against the pavement which was for the utter court, was gallery against gallery in three stories.
4	And before the chambers was a walk to ten cubits breadth inward, a way of one cubit; and their doors toward the north.
5	Now the upper chambers were shorter: for the galleries were higher than these, than the lower, and than the middlemost of the building.
6	For they were in three stories, but had not pillars as the pillars of the courts: therefore the building was straitened more than the lowest and the middlemost from the ground.
7	And the wall that was without over against the chambers, toward the utter court on the forepart of the chambers, the length thereof was fifty cubits.
8	For the length of the chambers that were in the utter court was fifty cubits: and, lo, before the temple were an hundred cubits.
9	And from under these chambers was the entry on the east side, as one goeth into them from the utter court.
10	The chambers were in the thickness of the wall of the court toward the east, over against the separate place, and over against the building.
11	And the way before them was like the appearance of the chambers which were toward the north, as long as they, and as broad as they: and all their goings out were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.
12	And according to the doors of the chambers that were toward the south was a door in the head of the way, even the way directly before the wall toward the east, as one entereth into them.
13	Then said he unto me, The north chambers and the south chambers, which are before the separate place, they be holy chambers, where the priests that approach unto the LORD shall eat the most holy things: there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meat offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; for the place is holy.
14	When the priests enter therein, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the utter court, but there they shall lay their garments wherein they minister; for they are holy; and shall put on other garments, and shall approach to those things which are for the people.
15	Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth toward the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it round about.
16	He measured the east side with the measuring reed, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.
17	He measured the north side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.
18	He measured the south side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed.
19	He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.
20	He measured it by the four sides: it had a wall round about, five hundred reeds long, and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place.

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The New Testament reading is the first chapter in the 2nd Epistle of Peter.

II Peter 1

1	Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2	Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
3	According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4	Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5	And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6	And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7	And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8	For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9	But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10	Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11	For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
12	Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
13	Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
14	Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
15	Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
16	For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17	For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18	And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19	We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20	Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21	For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.