Immerse: Poets Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 310
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IMMERSE
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POETS
That is why you are surrounded by traps
and tremble from sudden fears.
That is why you cannot see in the darkness,
and waves of water cover you.
“God is so great—higher than the heavens,
higher than the farthest stars.
But you reply, ‘That’s why God can’t see what I am doing!
How can he judge through the thick darkness?
For thick clouds swirl about him, and he cannot see us.
He is way up there, walking on the vault of heaven.’
“Will you continue on the old paths
where evil people have walked?
They were snatched away in the prime of life,
the foundations of their lives washed away.
For they said to God, ‘Leave us alone!
What can the Almighty do to us?’
Yet he was the one who filled their homes with good things,
so I will have nothing to do with that kind of thinking.
“The righteous will be happy to see the wicked destroyed,
and the innocent will laugh in contempt.
They will say, ‘See how our enemies have been destroyed.
The last of them have been consumed in the fire.’
“Submit to God, and you will have peace;
then things will go well for you.
Listen to his instructions,
and store them in your heart.
If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored—
so clean up your life.
If you give up your lust for money
and throw your precious gold into the river,
the Almighty himself will be your treasure.
He will be your precious silver!
“Then you will take delight in the Almighty
and look up to God.
You will pray to him, and he will hear you,
and you will fulfill your vows to him.
You will succeed in whatever you choose to do,
and light will shine on the road ahead of you.
If people are in trouble and you say, ‘Help them,’
God will save them.
22:10-29