Today's Readings and Stuff -- Saturday, 08 September 2018

So, we shall try again.
We see on the weather maps a huge storm that extends from central Pennsylvania to central Missouri, from the lower peninsula of Michigan down through Tennessee, with predictions of as much as 5" of rain in places and lots of flash flooding, as well as mudslides in the hillier parts of Pennsylvania.  We have some areas not too far from here that flood quite regularly in far more moderate rain events (though, oddly, the "official experts" paid by tax money, haven't troubled themselves to address the matter).  So we expect to have a day of doing inside stuff, like even more laundry and such.  Wife felt good enough (and hungry as well) to concoct a coffee cake when we got up, so coffee and coffee cake (with lots of cinnamon in it) isn't such a bad way to start the day.

Tomorrow's "high" is predicted to be around 59° with lots of rain, and today's at 68° so, despite the official season, it's not feeling all that "summery" around.  Our "day" is now down to 12 hours 48 minutes and losing another 2 minutes 41 seconds by tomorrow.  I can hear the Winter winds howl already.


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Today's reading is chapters 17 and 18 in Isaiah.  Yes, Syria, and Damascus in particular, has been a den of iniquity just about forever, and that is likely to continue until the End.  Saying that upsets some people, including some of my lefty lib friends, but it's still true.
The text is from the New King James version.


Isaiah 17

Proclamation Against Syria and Israel

1The burden against Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,

And it will be a ruinous heap.

2The cities of Aroer are forsaken;

They will be for flocks

Which lie down, and no one will make them afraid.

3The fortress also will cease from Ephraim,

The kingdom from Damascus,

And the remnant of Syria;

They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,”

Says the Lord of hosts.

4“In that day it shall come to pass

That the glory of Jacob will wane,

And the fatness of his flesh grow lean.

5It shall be as when the harvester gathers the grain,

And reaps the heads with his arm;

It shall be as he who gathers heads of grain

In the Valley of Rephaim.

6Yet gleaning grapes will be left in it,

Like the shaking of an olive tree,

Two or three olives at the top of the uppermost bough,

Four or five in its most fruitful branches,”

Says the Lord God of Israel.

7In that day a man will look to his Maker,

And his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.

8He will not look to the altars,

The work of his hands;

He will not respect what his fingers have made,

Nor the wooden images nor the incense altars.

9In that day his strong cities will be as a forsaken bough

And an uppermost branch,

Which they left because of the children of Israel;

And there will be desolation.

10Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation,

And have not been mindful of the Rock of your stronghold,

Therefore you will plant pleasant plants

And set out foreign seedlings;

11In the day you will make your plant to grow,

And in the morning you will make your seed to flourish;

But the harvest will be a heap of ruins

In the day of grief and desperate sorrow.

12Woe to the multitude of many people

Who make a noise like the roar of the seas,

And to the rushing of nations

That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters;

But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away,

And be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind,

Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

14Then behold, at eventide, trouble!

And before the morning, he is no more.

This is the portion of those who plunder us,

And the lot of those who rob us.

Isaiah 18

Proclamation Against Ethiopia

1Woe to the land shadowed with buzzing wings,

Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

2Which sends ambassadors by sea,

Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying,

“Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth ofskin,

To a people terrible from their beginning onward,

A nation powerful and treading down,

Whose land the rivers divide.”

3All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth:

When he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it;

And when he blows a trumpet, you hear it.

4For so the Lord said to me,

“I will take My rest,

And I will look from My dwelling place

Like clear heat in sunshine,

Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect

And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,

He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks

And take away and cut down the branches.

6They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey 

And for the beasts of the earth;

The birds of prey will summer on them,

And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

7In that time a present will be brought to the Lord of hosts

From a people tall and smooth of skin,

And from a people terrible from their beginning onward,

A nation powerful and treading down,

Whose land the rivers divide—

To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts,

To Mount Zion.