---

A personal reflection

You cannot hide. You plot and scheme as though unseen, not noticed, secure in the dark places of public life. You rise. You sit. You go out among the shadows, declaring innocence and impunity. You mislead. You cheat. You lie. You bear false witness and concoct stories to assail your neighbors. You connive, conspire, and assassinate.

You poison your opponents and flood the public with fear and hate. You threaten your critics, and pay legal fees for sycophants who have placed their trust in you. You rant and rage and rouse the people with a voice that feigns righteous indignation.

Isaiah’s rebuke continued

Because you have raged against Me
    and your insolence has come to My ears,
I will put My hook in your nose
    and My bit in your mouth;
I will turn you back on the way
    by which you came.

Isaiah 37:29

A hook in the nose

Personale reflection

Uncivil, insolent, resistant, unhinged, kicking up dust on everyone around you, you mock whatever would restrict you, restrain you, expose you to the light of day, but darkness is not dark to Me. I hear you snorting, braying and bellowing. I see you bucking against the bit and bridal that will break you of your whims and schemes, your defamations and slander, your arrogance and threats, your schemes of terror, your treasonous justifications of insurrection and assassination.

I AM. You cannot hide from Me.

A call for prophets

The biblical prophets Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Ezekiel et.al. were not, as is commonly supposed, fortune tellers. They were not palm readers. Isaiah confronted Sennacherib, king of an empire, while he called his countrymen to re-claim the souls they had almost lost.

Eugene Peterson paraphrases the rebuke of Sennacherib in his masterpiece rendering of the Bible, The Message:

I know all about your pretentious poses,

  your self-important comings and goings,

 and, yes, the tantrums you throw against me.

Because of all your wild raging against me,

 your unbridled arrogance that I keep hearing of,

I’ll put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth.

I’ll show you who’s boss. I’ll turn you around

 and take you back to where you came from. 

Isaiah 37:28-29