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Zephaniah 3

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1 Wo [to] the rebellious and polluted, The oppressing city!

2 She hath not hearkened to the voice, She hath not accepted instruction, In Jehovah she hath not trusted, Unto her God she hath not drawn near.

3 Her heads in her midst [are] roaring lions, Her judges [are] evening wolves, They have not gnawn the bone in the morning.

4 Her prophets unstable -- men of treachery, Her priests have polluted the sanctuary, They have violated the law.

5 Jehovah [is] righteous in her midst, He doth not do perverseness, Morning by Morning His judgment he giveth to the light, It hath not been lacking, And the perverse doth not know shame.

6 I have cut off nations, Desolated have been their chief ones, I have laid waste their out-places without any passing by, Destroyed have been their cities, without man, without inhabitant.

7 I have said: Only, ye do fear Me, Ye do accept instruction, And her habitation is not cut off, All that I have appointed for her, But they have risen early, They have corrupted all their doings.

8 Therefore, wait for Me -- an affirmation of Jehovah, For the day of My rising for prey, For My judgment [is] to gather nations, To assemble kingdoms, To pour out on them Mine indignation, All the heat of Mine anger, For by the fire of My jealousy consumed is all the earth.

9 For then do I turn unto peoples a pure lip, To call all of them by the name of Jehovah, To serve Him [with] one shoulder.

10 From beyond the rivers of Cush, my supplicants, The daughter of My scattered ones, Do bring My present.

11 In that day thou art not ashamed because of any of thine actions, Wherewith thou hast transgressed against Me, For then do I turn aside from thy midst The exulting ones of thine excellency, And thou dost add no more to be haughty, In My holy mountain.

12 And I have left in thy midst a people humble and poor, And they have trusted in the name of Jehovah.

13 The remnant of Israel do no perversity, nor speak lies, Nor found in their mouth is a deceitful tongue, For they have delight, and have lain down, And there is none troubling.

14 Cry aloud, O daughter of Zion, shout, O Israel, Rejoice and exult with the whole heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.

15 Jehovah hath turned aside thy judgments, He hath faced thine enemy, The king of Israel, Jehovah, [is] in thy midst, Thou seest evil no more.

16 In that day it is said to Jerusalem, `Fear not, O Zion, let not thy hands be feeble.

17 Jehovah thy God [is] in thy midst, A mighty one doth save, He rejoiceth over thee with joy, He doth work in His love, He joyeth over thee with singing.'

18 Mine afflicted from the appointed place I have gathered, from thee they have been, Bearing for her sake reproach.

19 Lo, I am dealing with all afflicting thee at that time, And I have saved the halting one, And the driven out ones I do gather, And have set them for a praise and for a name, In all the land of their shame.

20 At that time I bring you in, Even at the time of My assembling you, For I give you for a name, and for a praise, Among all peoples of the land, In My turning back [to] your captivity before your eyes, said Jehovah!

   

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Time

  

Time is an aspect of the physical world, but it is not an aspect of the spiritual world. The same is true of space: There is no space in heaven. This is hard for us to grasp or even visualize, because we live in physical bodies with physical senses that are filled with physical elements existing in time and space. Our minds are schooled and patterned in terms of time and space, and have no reference point to imagine a reality without them. Consider how you think for a second. In your mind you can immediately be in your past or in some speculative future; in your mind you can circle the globe seeing other lands and faraway friends, or even zoom instantly to the most distant stars. Such imaginings are insubstantial, of course, but if we could make them real we would be getting close to what spiritual reality is like. Indeed, the mind is like a spiritual organ, which may be why physicians and philosophers have had such a hard time juxtaposing its functions to those of the brain. What this means in the Bible is that descriptions of time -- hours, days, weeks, months, years and even simply the word "time" itself -- represent spiritual states, and the passing of time represents the change of spiritual states. Again, we can see this a little bit within our minds. If we imagine talking to one friend then talking to another, it feels like going from one place to another, even though we're not moving. The same is true if we picture a moment from childhood and then imagine something in the future; it feels like a movement through time even though it's instantaneous. Changing our state of mind feels like a physical change in space and time. The Bible simply reverses that, with marking points in space and time representing particular states of mind.