No Escape!

We have reached Nahum – not a book that many of us read often! A sign of how rarely we read it is my own confusion as I prepared. Two weeks ago, I looked up the texts, made some notes, and sent my focus statement and sermon title to Daniela. Then, at the end of the week, I did some more preparation. I found a problem immediately! I had read Habbakuk, assumed that it was Nahum, and sent Daniela information that was completely wrong!

When the preacher doesn’t even know which book he’s in, you can guess that we don’t read these books very often. So I sat down and read and reread Nahum, and wrote this sermon. We’ll see if it makes sense now!

Nahum 1: 12-15

We began with some verses from chapter 1:

¹² This is what the Lord says: “Although they have allies and are numerous, they will be destroyed and pass away. Although I have afflicted you, Judah, I will afflict you no more. ¹³ Now I will break their yoke from your neck and tear your shackles away.”

¹⁴ The Lord has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: “You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the images and idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave, for you are vile.”

¹⁵ Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, Judah, and fulfill your vows. No more will the wicked invade you; they will be completely destroyed.

Nahum prophesied to and about Nineveh (Assyria), with a few comments directed to Judah. He conducted his ministry after the fall of Samaria and the Northern Kingdom, and anticipates the fall of Assyria to Babylon. In this fall, Nahum sees God at work, judging Nineveh just as God had also judged Samaria.

The name “Nahum” may mean “comfort” (like Naomi in the book of Ruth – “comfortable” or “pleasant”). The comfort this comforter brings is cold comfort. It is the comfort of God’s certain justice, rendered against Assyria, Israel’s great enemy. Verse 1 tells us that he was an “Elkoshite”. We’re not sure what this means, but it could place his home either in a part of Israel controlled by Assyria, or even in Assyria itself, so that he knew from firsthand experience about the great country ruled by Nineveh,

In chapter 1, then, Nahum introduces God as one takes vengeance on all God’s enemies: “The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it. Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger?” (vv 5-6) Verses 7 and 8 contrast God’s goodness with God’s judgment. The whole book is unrelenting in portraying God’s judgment, so that verse 7 almost feels out of place: “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” In fact, I suggest that this note of goodness and grace is the key that helps us understand the whole book of Nahum. We will return to this idea at the end.

Then come the verses we heard read: Nineveh will be completely destroyed, and Judah will be secure and free. Assyria’s reliance on other gods is the basic problem, combined with their violence against the nations around them. In verse 15, we hear again of hope for Judah: Judgment brings salvation. Along with verses 7 and 8, this promise of hope to Judah is a candle within the darkness of Nahum’s prophecy. This flickering light reminds us that God loves the world, and that God’s judgment is always experienced within the context of God’s love. God’s wrath serves God’s love.

Nahum 2: 1-6

An attacker advances against you, Nineveh. Guard the fortress, watch the road, brace yourselves, marshal all your strength! ² The Lord will restore the splendour of Jacob like the splendour of Israel, though destroyers have laid them waste and have ruined their vines.

³ The shields of the soldiers are red; the warriors are clad in scarlet. The metal on the chariots flashes on the day they are made ready; the spears of juniper are brandished. ⁴ The chariots storm through the streets, rushing back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart about like lightning.

⁵ Nineveh summons her picked troops, yet they stumble on their way. They dash to the city wall; the protective shield is put in place. ⁶ The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses.

Nahum pictures the destruction of Nineveh. (You can almost hear Jonah cheering in the background.) This time, unlike their response to Jonah’s prophecies, the people of Nineveh rally themselves to fight, but they fail. The palace collapses! Assyria is destroyed.

You notice that their destruction appears to equal Israel’s restoration (v 2), a thought that does not sit well with us as pacifists. This is a problem in the text for us to deal with. For the moment, we simply observe that Assyria has lived by violence, and now they die by violence. At one level, the message of Nahum is that no one who embraces violence will escape violence. The only sure path of salvation is to embrace the Lord.

Nahum 3: 18-19

Chapter 3 continues the message, a wholesale condemnation of Assyria the violent. The chapter ends with these words:

¹⁸ King of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your nobles lie down to rest. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them. ¹⁹ Nothing can heal you; your wound is fatal. All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty?

We hear the message of peace here in its negative form: Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. There is no escape. God’s hand rests on everyone, for good or for evil.

Synthesis

We see, then, that everyone belongs to God, not just the “Chosen people” of Israel, and God judges everyone. A defining, although understated, point that gives this truth meaning is that God’s desire to save also applies to everyone (1:7). God’s invitation – and God’s warning – is for everyone! Nahum then repeats the basic point that we have made throughout this series: The heartbeat of God is one of love, a love that encompasses all people and all of life. This point, however, raises a question that we must deal with. To get at the question, let’s paint a scenario for our congregational life.

Just Pretend

Let’s pretend that we have a practice of asking questions during or after the service. Someone who has a question might text it to Lee, who would put up his hand and say, “Daryl, we have a question here from the congregation. Someone here wants to know why you keep saying that every passage we read talks about God’s love. The plain meaning of the words states that God is going to destroy them, and you say, ‘That’s God’s love at work!’ What’s going on?”

Our imaginary questioner has a point. A basic principle of reading the Bible is to start with the plain meaning of the text. We look for some deeper meaning only when something in the text forces us to. For example, 1 Corinthians 14 tells us that women should keep quiet in church. But 1 Corinthians 11 says that women should cover their heads as a sign of their authority to prophesy (like I am doing now). This apparent contradiction makes it clear that something else is going on besides either covering their heads or keeping quiet. The larger context makes the actual meaning clear.

So what is it in this passage that tells us we should look for a deeper meaning? The answer is fairly simple, and it comes in two steps.

One: We read the Old Testament through the light of the New Testament. As St. Augustine said, “The New is in the Old contained; the Old is by the New explained.” That is, when we read the minor prophets, we hear what they say in light of the New Testament. Further, we read both Old and New Testaments through the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

The centre of Jesus’ life and teaching is that God loves the world so much that Jesus came to die for the world. Jesus also speaks judgment, but his words of judgment are always in the service of God’s grace and love.

A brief note: Some people think that Jesus taught a message of love, and Paul came along and changed the message to one of judgment. The fact is that Jesus speaks more judgment than Paul does, and Paul gives us wonderful verses like those found in Romans 8 (“What can separate us from the love of God? Nothing!”) Paul wrote the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. When we read Jesus fully, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount, we find that he teaches God’s judgment, always in service of God’s love.

Two: Hear again how strange the verses of hope in Nahum sound. In the middle of warnings that Assyria will be destroyed, the prophet reminds Judah that they will be saved, for “the Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” These verses in chapter 1 (7, 8, 12, and 15) are so different from the rest of the book that one wonders if someone added them later. Some readers might want to take them out, because they don’t fit, but it is precisely these verses that connect the dramatic warnings of the prophet to the larger theme of God’s love. They force us to listen to the prophecies of judgment within the larger theme of God’s love.

Listening to the text this way, we hear God say clearly to us: No one can escape from God’s judgment, and no one can escape from God’s love. We live in a dangerous world, and embracing violence and strength (the world’s way) leads only to more violence and destruction. God invites people to place their trust in God, in whom alone they can find peace.

An Example from our Violent World

Recently I read an article from Christianity Today (April 20, 2018). It begins with these words:

You have seen my picture a thousand times. It’s a picture that made the world gasp—a picture that defined my life. I am nine years old, running along a puddled roadway in front of an expressionless soldier, arms outstretched, naked, shrieking in pain and fear, the dark contour of a napalm cloud billowing in the distance.

My own people, the South Vietnamese, had been bombing trade routes used by the Viet Cong rebels. I had not been targeted, of course. I had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those bombs have brought me immeasurable pain. Even now, some 40 years later, I am still receiving treatment for burns that cover my arms, back, and neck. The emotional and spiritual pain was even harder to endure.

Kim Phuc Phan Thi tells her full story in a 2017 book titled, Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace. This article is a brief excerpt. She tells how she survived the bombing. The photographer took the children to the hospital after he took the picture. The doctors did not think she would survive, but she did – after 17 surgeries over 14 months.

She tells us that her parents were leaders within the Cao Dai religion. Here is her description:

Cao Dai is universalist in nature. According to a description on CaoDai.org, it recognizes all religions as having “one same divine origin, which is God, or Allah, or the Tao, or the Nothingness,” or pretty much any other deity you could imagine. “You are god, and god is you”—we had this mantra ingrained in us. We were equal-opportunity worshipers, giving every god a shot.

Looking back, I see my family’s religion as something of a charm bracelet slung around my wrist, each dangling bauble representing yet another possibility of divine assistance. When troubles came along—and every day, it seemed, they did—I was encouraged to rub those charms in hopes that help would arrive.

For years, I prayed to the gods of Cao Dai for healing and peace. But as one prayer after another went unanswered, it became clear that either they were nonexistent or they did not care to lend a hand.

 She was nine years old when the bombs dropped. Over the next 12 years she looked for help to deal with the crippling physical and emotional and spiritual pain she bore. She writes:

In 1982, I found myself crouched inside Saigon’s central library, pulling Vietnamese books of religion off the shelves one by one. The stack in front of me included books on Bahá’í, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Cao Dai. It also contained a copy of the New Testament. I thumbed through several books before pulling the New Testament into my lap. An hour later, I had picked my way through the Gospels, and at least two themes had become abundantly clear.

First, despite all that I had learned through Cao Dai—…, that there were many paths to holiness, that the burden of “success” in religion rested atop my own weary, slumped shoulders—Jesus presented himself as the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). His entire ministry, it seemed, pointed to one straightforward claim: “I am the way you get to God; there is no other way but me.” Second, this Jesus had suffered in defense of his claim. He had been mocked, tortured, and killed. Why would he endure these things, I wondered, if he were not, in fact, God?

I had never been exposed to this side of Jesus—the wounded one, the one who bore scars. I turned over this new information in my mind as a gem in my hand, relishing the light that was cast from all sides. The more I read, the more I came to believe that he really was who he said he was, that he really had done what he said he had done, and that—most important to me—he really would do all that he had promised in his Word.

That Christmas Eve, Kim Phuc found herself in a small church in Saigon. The pastor spoke simply, of the gift we give at Christmas, and of the greatest gift ever given, when God gave God’s Son, Jesus. She writes that she was desperate for peace and joy to replace the bitterness and desire for death she felt so deeply.

So when the pastor finished speaking, I stood up, stepped out into the aisle, and made my way to the front of the sanctuary to say yes to Jesus Christ. And there, in a small church in Vietnam, mere miles from the street where my journey had begun amid the chaos of war—on the night before the world would celebrate the birth of the Messiah—I invited Jesus into my heart. When I woke up that Christmas morning, I experienced the kind of healing that can only come from God. I was finally at peace.

Kim Phuc still lives today with the physical consequences of that horror-filled day when the bombs rained down on her village, but she adds something of vital importance: “Today, I thank God for that picture. Today, I thank God for everything—even for that road. Especially for that road.” (As a side note to her story, she lives today in the Toronto area. She defected to Canada in 1996 and became a citizen in 1997. She has established the Kim Phuc Foundation International for healing children of war. In an interview with NPR, she said, “Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could learn how to live with true love, hope, and forgiveness. If that little girl in the picture can do it, ask yourself: Can you?”

Conclusion

This overwhelming wonderful grace of God lies deep in the foundations of Nahum’s life and message. He speaks the words of warning clearly – to Nineveh, and to everyone who lives by violence and deceit. The warnings serve to remind us that no one can escape God’s judgment, just as no one can escape God’s love. When we turn to God, not away from God, we are reminded that “Nahum” means “Comfort”. Nahum’s comfort is true. “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.”

Steinbach Mennonite Church

27 May 2018

Christianity is not a religion; it’s a relationship

We are moving week by week through the “Minor Prophets” – shorter books than the “Major prophets”, but by no means minor in their message or importance.

We began with Jonah, who showed us “the God of the second chance”. Then came Amos, who went from his home south of Jerusalem to the Northern Kingdom to tell them that their religious idolatry, sexual promiscuity, and economic oppression falsified their offerings to God. God wants God’s people to thrive. Last week we heard about Hosea, whose radical love for his unfaithful wife gives us a picture of God’s love for God’s unfaithful people.

These three prophets ministered in the Northern Kingdom during a time of political and economic prosperity. Jeroboam 2 had a long and prosperous reign. They made it clear, however, that outward prosperity can conceal inward greed and rebellion against God. It may be that the watching people don’t see the inner corruption, but God does see it, and God sends the prophets to speak against it.

Today we move from the North (Samaria) to the South (Jerusalem). Micah ministers in the period just after Amos and Hosea, beginning in days of prosperity under Jeroboam 2, but continuing through his successors. The first verse of the book states: “The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” This dating carries his ministry through Jeroboam’s successors: Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hoshea.

Micah saw the prosperity of Jeroboam. Micah saw prosperity in Judah as well, if not as much as in Samaria, but he also saw something else. Amos had said during the height of Samaria’s prosperity that the Assyrians would destroy their nation, and it happened. Micah saw the end of the Northern Kingdom, and he saw his own country tremble before the Assyrian army. He experienced the terror of the Assyrian army camped around Jerusalem, before God destroyed it (2 Kings 18 and 19). Lord Byron pictured the scene in a poem written 200 years ago:

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

This then is the background to the passages we heard read this morning. We consider them now briefly, and then ask what they tell us about the heart of God.

Micah 1: 3 to 7

In chapter 1, Micah tells the people that God’s judgment is on Samaria (the northern kingdom) and Jerusalem (the southern kingdom) because of their reliance on the high places – worship of false gods mingled with their worship of Yahweh. Given that he is speaking primarily to Judah, he uses the fact that they have seen the judgment on Samaria to warn them about the danger they face. He references primarily religious idolatry, but economic corruption is also a basic theme in his warnings to Judah.

Micah 4: 1 to 5

The passage in chapter 4 is one of our best-loved. Clearly it was one that the people of Micah’s day also liked, since Micah and Isaiah both use it. Probably they are both quoting a saying or hymn that people knew well.

The passage tells the people that God’s desire for God’s people is that they will be people of such goodness and peace that the whole world streams to them to learn how to know such peace and joy. People around the world look for such goodness within their own ‘gods”, but God’s people follow Yahweh alone, in Whom is peace and joy.

[Excursus: Missiologists call this “centripetal mission” of attraction, as compared to the “centrifugal” mission” of sending in the NT. Of course, God’s People are also sent in the OT (e.g., Abraham and Sarah sent to Canaan, and Jacob’s family sent into Egypt, and God’s New People in the NT are also to be a “city set on a hill”.]

Zion (or Jerusalem) is a foretaste of the New Jerusalem, so that this perfect peace, in which weapons are turned into agricultural implements, finds its fulfillment in the return of Christ at the end of all things. It stands as a beacon to inspire us to live the way that God wants us to live now, to be people of peace now. Ten Thousand Villages carries a line of jewelry made out of bomb casings, a sign of our hope in this life and the next.

Micah 6: 1 to 8

In chapter 6, in another of our favourite passages, God speaks like a lover. He says to us, “Remember the relationship we have had, the life we have lived together!” The prophet then speaks for God’s people, recognizing that our sin has polluted our worship and made it completely unacceptable. True worship is found in walking with God. Justice and mercy come from walking with God (which means, living with God). True religion flows from right relationship: Our faith is not a religion; it is a relationship.

[Footnote: I am borrowing this line from Bruxy Cavey and his book, The End of Religion. Of course, it is an overstatement. I teach World Religions, and that includes the religion called “Christianity”. But Cavey is right. The heart of the Christian religion is relationship with God, not the system of rituals we call “Christianity”.]

[Excursus: I was at a Theological Day with Joel Thiessen this past Friday (May 4, 2017), held at The Meeting House in Oakville,Ontario, where Bruxy is the preaching pastor. Thiessen’s presentation on those who enter “no religious affiliation on surveys (the “nones”) tied well into my thinking in this sermon.]

Synthesis

The point of all this is that God desires a relationship with us. The Law in the OT was always based on covenant. A covenant is something that seals and protects a relationship. True religion in the OT was never a matter of simply doing the right things so that God would have to bless the people. The transactional approach, trying to make God serve the people (what some call using God like a vending machine), is precisely what the prophets spoke against. Amos says, “I hate your tithes and offerings because you have broken our covenant!” Micah repeats it here: What does God want? God wants you to love justice and show kindness – and, most importantly, to walk with God. God wants us as lovers! That is the repeated thought in the startling imagery that we found in Hosea!

True worship relates with God; it is a relationship, not just ritual. True worship obeys and is better than sacrifice. True worship changes your life and mine. True worship changes the world around us through the power of love, acting in justice and mercy towards everyone around us.

Working It Out

Jesus told us precisely this, and we have heard it often enough. Jesus summarized the Law: “Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus had told the disciples that his new commandment was to love each other with the love they saw in him. This active love, this dynamic relationship, was what would show the world that they were Christians (John 13). But what do most people think of in Canada when they think about Christians? Joel Thiessen wrote an article in 2010 about the churches’ struggle to attract new people. Here is how he describes the way many people see the church:

Non-Christians perceive Christians, particularly evangelicals, to be hypocritical, anti-homosexual, sheltered within a Christian subculture, too political, judgmental, and motivated to make friends with non-Christians only because they wish to convert them. Christians are known not for what they stand for, but for what they stand against. They are perceived as closed-minded, arrogant, and highly exclusive relative to the surrounding culture.

Quote from Joel Thiessen, “Churches Are Not Necessarily the Problem: Lessons Learned from Christmas and Easter Affiliates”, p. 6. (Church and Faith Trends, Dec 2010, Vol. 3, No. 3). This paper was part of the reading for the Theological Day I attended.

This is awkward. What do the prophets do, if it is not to condemn sin in the world? What are prophets known for, if it is not for what they stand against? I have stressed the sins that Amos and Hosea and Micah condemned: sexual promiscuity, religious idolatry, and economic oppression. Only the last of these would gain any purchase in Canada today. We might agree that economic oppression is bad, but we would tell the prophet to mind his own business if he started rebuking us for what we think or believe or do “behind closed doors”.

But to hear the prophets this way is to miss what they were for. Their point was never only to denounce sin, but always to call people back into relationship with God. Amos wanted people to worship God rightly. Hosea wanted people to discover God’s love. Micah called people to renew their covenant with God and walk with the God who made them. This was their heartbeat, which reflected God’s consistent desire for God’s creation: “Love God. Love God’s People. Love God’s World.”

How?

The task of figuring out how we do this is your homework. We need to work this out together, talking over coffee, working alongside each other, discovering the needs of our community and our world and meeting them in love.

Micah’s words were: act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Start with the last of that series. We recognize that we are not very good at showing people God’s love, so we turn back to God in humility and with a deep desire for God to fill us. Read your Bible often, listening for God’s voice. Pray often, listening for God’s Spirit. Use the Lord’s Prayer or something like it over and over.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned Alan Kreider’s book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church. He notes that worship and prayer were basic to the early church’s patient consistent walk with God. People spent time together praying and seeking God’s face. They prayed looking up, as if towards God, with hands outstretched. God was real to them, and God’s presence transformed their lives.

Justice and mercy (or as some translate it, kindness) flowed out of them because they knew themselves to be in God’s presence, wherever they were. These qualities were like their clothes, which they put on when they got up in the morning. One way that they reminded themselves who they were was by using the kiss of peace. Rich people would kiss poor people in the church, and poor would kiss rich. When martyrs were about to die in the arena, they would kiss each other as a visible sign of God’s love working within them. We don’t need to do what they did with these outward forms, but we do need their relationship with each other and with God. We love God, and so we love God’s people and we love God’s world.

What would it take for us to change the way that people around us see Christians? When it comes to witnessing, many of us probably adopt a policy of be as nice as you can, and maybe sometime someone will ask you why you’re so nice. Then you can say, “Because of Jesus!” J The trouble is that niceness is our national Canadian virtue. You know how we apologize when we trip over someone else. It’s their fault, and we say, “Sorry!” Someone asked, “If a Canadian trips when nobody is around, will he/she still apologize?” We are all participants in a national “I’m nicer than you contest”. So how nice would we have to be for people to notice?

You notice that Micah doesn’t say, “Be nice.” He says, “Be kind.” Put yourself out for people who are hurting. “Love justice.” Put yourself out for people who are marginalized. “Walk humbly with God.” Spend your life so close to God that you reflexively radiate God’s peace and love in every situation you find yourself.

Conclusion

As I said before, the actual shape of our lives is for all of us to work out together. Perhaps you can talk together a family or friends over lunch, working out what it means to radiate God’s love. Let me leave you with a prayer you have heard before, sometimes called the prayer of Saint Francis, which expresses in other words what I have been trying to say:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Note: I gather that this well-known prayer was probably not by St. Francis, and that it appears in various versions. The prayer is still worth praying.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

6 May 2018
Scriptures
Micah 1: 3 to 7

Judgment against Samaria and Jerusalem

³ Look! The Lord is coming from his dwelling-place; he comes down and treads on the heights of the earth. ⁴ The mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope. ⁵ All this is because of Jacob’s transgression, because of the sins of the people of Israel. 

What is Jacob’s transgression? Is it not Samaria? What is Judah’s high place? Is it not Jerusalem?

⁶ ‘Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble, a place for planting vineyards. I will pour her stones into the valley and lay bare her foundations. ⁷ All her idols will be broken to pieces; all her temple gifts will be burned with fire; I will destroy all her images. Since she gathered her gifts from the wages of prostitutes, as the wages of prostitutes they will again be used.’

Micah 4: 1 to 5

The Mountain of the Lord

4 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. ² Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’

The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. ³ He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more. ⁴ Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig-tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.

⁵ All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord
    our God for ever and ever.

Micah 6: 1 to 8

The Lord’s case against Israel

6 Listen to what the Lord says: ‘Stand up, plead my case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. ² Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel.

³ ‘My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me. ⁴ I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam. ⁵ My people, remember what Balak king of Moab plotted and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.’ 

⁶ With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? ⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

⁸ He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.