C. S. Lewis Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Клайв Стейплз Льюис

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ their courses they fought against Sisera.

      ²¹ The torrent Kishon swept them away,

      the onrushing torrent, the torrent Kishon.

      March on, my soul, with might!

      ²² “Then loud beat the horses’ hoofs

      with the galloping, galloping of his steeds.

      ²³ “Curse Meroz, says the angel of the LORD,

      curse bitterly its inhabitants,

      because they did not come to the help of the LORD,

      to the help of the LORD against the mighty.

      ²⁴ “Most blessed of women be Jael,

      the wife of Heber the Kenite,

      of tent-dwelling women most blessed.

      ²⁵ He asked water and she gave him milk,

      she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.

      ²⁶ She put her hand to the tent peg

      and her right hand to the workmen’s mallet;

      she struck Sisera a blow,

      she crushed his head,

      she shattered and pierced his temple.

      ²⁷ He sank, he fell,

      he lay still at her feet;

      at her feet he sank, he fell;

      where he sank, there he fell dead.

      ²⁸ “Out of the window she peered,

the mother of Sisera gazed[18] through the lattice:

      ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?

      Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?’

      ²⁹ Her wisest ladies make answer,

      indeed, she answers the question herself:

      ³⁰ ‘Are they not finding and dividing the spoil?—

      A girl or two for every man;

      spoil of dyed stuffs for Sisera,

      spoil of dyed stuffs embroidered,

      two pieces of dyed work embroidered for my neck as spoil?’

      ³¹ “So perish all your enemies, O LORD!

      But may your friends be like the sun as it rises in its might.”

      And the land had rest forty years.

6 The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. ²The hand of Midian prevailed over Israel; and because of Midian the Israelites provided for themselves hiding places in the mountains, caves and strongholds. ³For whenever the Israelites put in seed, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east would come up against them. ⁴They would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the land, as far as the neighborhood of Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep or ox or donkey. ⁵For they and their livestock would come up, and they would even bring their tents, as thick as locusts; neither they nor their camels could be counted; so they wasted the land as they came in. ⁶Thus Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian; and the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help.

      7 When the Israelites cried to the LORD on account of the Midianites, ⁸the LORD sent a prophet to the Israelites; and he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of slavery; ⁹and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you, and gave you their land; ¹⁰and I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; you shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not given heed to my voice.”

      11 Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. ¹²The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty warrior.” ¹³Gideon answered him, “But sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian.” ¹⁴Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.” ¹⁵He responded, “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” ¹⁶The LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.” ¹⁷Then he said to him, “If now I have found favor with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. ¹⁸Do not depart from here until I come to you, and bring out my present, and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay until you return.”

      19 So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. ²⁰The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. ²¹Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight. ²²Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the LORD; and Gideon said, “Help me, Lord GOD! For I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face.” ²³But the LORD said to him, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.” ²⁴Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it, The LORD is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

      IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD

      To believe that God—at least this God—exists is to believe that you as a person now stand in the presence of God as a Person. What would, a moment before, have been variations in opinion, now become variations in your personal attitude to a Person. You are no longer faced with an argument which demands your assent, but with a Person who demands your confidence.

      —from “On Obstinacy in Belief,” The World’s Last Night and Other Essays

      For reflection

Judges 6:11–24

25 That night the LORD said to him, “Take your father’s bull, the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father, and cut down the СКАЧАТЬ