Cooking pot
Day 416, Wednesday, Oct. 1
Ezekiel Chapters 24 – 26
The first image in chapter 24 is that of a copper cooking pot with a defiling deposit or residue that cannot be cleansed, even by fire. The comparison is to the people who have become so impure.
In verse 13 we read, “Now your impurity is lewdness. Because I tried to cleanse you but you would not be cleansed from your impurity, you will not be clean again until my wrath against you has subsided.”
This is followed by the death of Ezekiel’s wife.
Even her death is to be an opportunity for prophecy, as Ezekiel is ordered to “Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead.”
Likewise the people will be denied their expected time of mourning at the fall of Jerusalem: “Your will not mourn or weep but will waste away because of your sins and groan among yourselves.”
Chapters 25 and 26 are warnings of destruction against specific cities and nations.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Wednesday meditation

Job 41:1-11
“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? Will it keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words? Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of it like a bird or put it on a leash for the young women in your house? Will traders barter for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

Prayer focus
God, forgive us for turning away from you and accept our repentance with your mercy.