12/18/10
Dear Jehovah God,
And it will be, like people, like priest; so, You will punish them for their ways, and repay them for their deeds.
The days of punishment have come, the days of retribution have come; let Israel know this! The prophet is a fool, the inspired man is demented, because of the grossness of my iniquity, and because my hostility is so great.
They/We will not remain in Your land, but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and in Assyria they will eat unclean food.
For behold, we will go because of destruction; Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury us. Weeds will take over our treasures of silver; thorns will be in our tents.
We have gone deep in depravity as in the days of Gibeah; You will remember our iniquity, You will punish our sins.
May we return to You from whom we have deeply defected, O sons of Israel.
However, his master said to him, “We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who are not of the sons of Israel; but we will go on as far as Gibeah.”
Then behold, an old man was coming out of the field from his work at evening. Now the man was from the ill country of Ephraim, and he was staying (sojourning) in Gibeah, but the men of the place were Benjamites. And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city; and the old man said, “Where are you going, and where do you come from?” and he said to him, “We are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, for I am from there, and I went to Bethlehem in Judah. But I am now going to my (the house of Jehovah) house, and no man will take me into his house. Yet there is both straw and fodder for our donkeys, and also bread and wine for me, your (my concubine) maidservant, and the young man who is with your servants; there is no lack of anything.” And the old man said, “Peace to you. Only let me take care of all your needs; however, do not spend the night in the open square.” So, he took him into his house and gave the donkeys fodder, and they washed their feet and ate and drank.
While they were making (making their hearts merry) merry, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless (sons of Belial) fellows, surrounded the house, pounding the door; and they spoke to the owner of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who came into your house that we may have relations (intercourse) with him.” Then the man, the owner of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my fellows, please do not act so wickedly; since this man has come into my house, do not commit this act of folly. Here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. Please let me bring them out that you may ravish them and to them whatever (the good in your eyes) you wish. But do not commit such an act of folly against this man.” But the men would not listen to him, so the man seized his concubine and brought her out to them. And they raped her and abused her all night until morning, then let her go at the approach of dawn. As the day began to dawn, the woman came and fell down at the doorway of the man’s house where her master was, until full daylight.
When her master arose in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, then behold, his concubine way lying at the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. And he said to her, “Get up and let us go,” but there was no answer. Then he placed her on the donkey; and the man arose and went to his home. When he entered his house, he took a knife and laid hold of his concubine and cut her in twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout the territory of Israel. And it came about that all who saw it said, “Nothing like this have ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel and speak up!”
From the days of Gibeah we have sinned, O Israel; there we stand! Will not the battle against the sons of iniquity overtake us in Gibeah?
And we do not consider in our hearts that You remember all our wickedness. Now our deeds are all around us; we are before Your face.
As for Your sacrificial gifts, we sacrifice the flesh and eat it, but You have taken no delight in them. Now You will remember our iniquity, and punish us; we will return to Egypt.
You know all our iniquity, yet we do not. We do not remember our own iniquity. We do not know where we have been or where we go. We murder ruthlessly without conscious. We do not know even what we have done.
Please heal us. Make us know our iniquity. Make me know my iniquity. Make me turn around and live by Your commandments. Amen, Amen, and Amen.