Bonus Reading, Isaiah

The Role of Violence   

Today's reading is one of the many prophecies in the Bible in which God proposes to use violence as a means of purifying the people.  The threat of death and destruction has a way of focusing attention.

Here, the violence -- in the form of the Assyrian army -- will hopefully chasten the people of Israel, causing them to understand how their unjust and unfaithful behavior provoked God's actions.  However, the tool of this punishment -- the Assyrians -- will then face God's judgment as well, also in the form of violence and destruction.

Read Isaiah 10:1-27  (NIV)   (NRSV)   (CEB)

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