Immerse: Poets Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 324
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IMMERSE
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POETS
So you don’t need to be afraid of me.
I won’t come down hard on you.
“You have spoken in my hearing,
and I have heard your very words.
You said, ‘I am pure; I am without sin;
I am innocent; I have no guilt.
God is picking a quarrel with me,
and he considers me his enemy.
He puts my feet in the stocks
and watches my every move.’
“But you are wrong, and I will show you why.
For God is greater than any human being.
So why are you bringing a charge against him?
Why say he does not respond to people’s complaints?
For God speaks again and again,
though people do not recognize it.
He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night,
when deep sleep falls on people
as they lie in their beds.
He whispers in their ears
and terrifies them with warnings.
He makes them turn from doing wrong;
he keeps them from pride.
He protects them from the grave,
from crossing over the river of death.
“Or God disciplines people with pain on their
sickbeds,
with ceaseless aching in their bones.
They lose their appetite
for even the most delicious food.
Their flesh wastes away,
and their bones stick out.
They are at death’s door;
the angels of death wait for them.
“But if an angel from heaven appears—
a special messenger to intercede for a person
and declare that he is upright—
he will be gracious and say,
‘Rescue him from the grave,
for I have found a ransom for his life.’
33:7-24
