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The things I’ve seen have burned my eyes like the white-hot sun with their glory. The things I’ve heard with my mere human ears have stopped my beating heart with the weight of their holiness. But some of the things I hear I do not want to say to my people, the children of Israel.
One day, I, Jeremiah, was told by the LORD to speak to the people in the courtyard of His Temple. And everything in me wanted to run from the grim truth I had to tell them. But I went, for I must speak His words. They consume my soul like fire.In the courtyard, the scalding sun glared down at me out of a devastatingly blue sky, and my robes clung with sweat to my skin. I squinted at the faces of the people as they walked past through the quivering air. The beloved children of the LORD were holding their heads high like their blind, traitorous hearts. I opened my mouth to speak, but could not. My throat was clogged with a lump of fear, my lungs heavy as though full of liquid.
The sun shone brighter and brighter; and the words of the LORD burned in my soul. I drew in a deep shaky breath and began to speak to the people.
“This is what the LORD says!” I called, with all my shaky strength.
My voice stopped the moving people to listen to me. After all, I was a prophet. And though they didn’t realise it clear and simple in their own minds, I knew that they were hoping this time I would tell them what they wanted to hear, the way the false prophets do.
“If you do not listen to Me and follow My law, then I will make this city a curse amongst all the nations and the earth.”
A thin cloud softened the sun’s rays, a gentle breeze cooled my burning skin.
I had spoken.
The faces I had spoken to stared at me. The words of the LORD were sinking in through their thick unprepared skins, pressing into their guilty souls. For a moment, the courtyard could not move; till it was abruptly broken by a great storm of human rage.
“You must die!” a voice cried. “You are a false prophet - you have prophesied against the city!”
They rushed towards me like the cold relentless waves of the ocean, and took hold of me with angry, bruising hands. Then my people lowered me and my words from the LORD into a deep, dark cistern filled with mud rather than water. Perhaps they thought that if they couldn’t see me, what I had to say was not the truth. But my LORD did not abandon me to die in the mud.
It wasn’t long before someone pulled me up again into the pure gold light of the sun.
Note: this story was drawn from the book of Isaiah in the Holy Bible. I can't remember what version it was but it was most likely the NLT or the NIV.
