In my school, I'm writing Proverbs 31, and when I got to the wife of noble character, I thought it would be cool to do a kind of study on her find out some of the reasons she is such a rare jewel. So I'm making a list of what she does. These are just a few of the basics:

She and her husband have a good relationship.

She has incredible self control.

She doesn't sleep much.

She does some amount of sewing and spinning.

She isn't lazy.

She has children, and disciplines them well.

She gives to the poor.

That's quite a woman, and that's only a few of them.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

God was about to send them into eighty years of captivity, because of what they did, but he gives them a promise, a hope, that they could grasp while they were in exile. He loved them so much, he warned them and pleaded for them to repent for 23 yrs. And now that they're going into exile, he gives them good advice and promises a future and a hope for them despite what they've done.

This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.”

And he took it everywhere.

Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a ruin and an object of horror and scorn and cursing, as they are today; 19 Pharaoh king of Egypt, his attendants, his officials and all his people, 20 and all the foreign people there; all the kings of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines (those of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the people left at Ashdod); 21 Edom, Moab and Ammon; 22 all the kings of Tyre and Sidon; the kings of the coastlands across the sea; 23 Dedan, Tema, Buz and all who are in distant places[c]; 24 all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign people who live in the desert; 25 all the kings of Zimri, Elam and Media; 26 and all the kings of the north, near and far, one after the other—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach[d] will drink it too.

How on earth did he do that? That must of taken a looooooooooooong time.

CT said yesterday he was studying Revelation, and it made me wanta do it this mornin, so, I found a spot and started reading.
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.
The Crazy love book had referenced this recently, and I had read and dissected most of it. But today I looked at the last sentence. A sea of glass? What is that? The dictionary reference thingy in the back of my bible didn't help much, so I got out the 2 HUGE bible dictionaries and started looking. Not much to say about it in there either. It did give me a reference to 1 Kings 7:23-26. But no. I already knew about the sea of cast metal and the sea of cast bronze that were made in Solomon's temple. But what were those for? Were they just for decoration?

For twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—the word of the LORD has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. And though the LORD has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. They said, “Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the LORD gave to you and your fathers for ever and ever. Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not provoke me to anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.” “But you did not listen to me,” declares the LORD, “and you have provoked me with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves. Twenty-three years! That's a long time to be warned. It really shows how much God wanted them to turn from their ways. It seems that if someone has been trying to tell you about something, over and over, nonstop, for twenty-three years, that they would probably know what they're talking about.

Reading Crazy Love. AMAZING! I seriously encourage whoever's reading this right now to get a copy and read it. Thoughts I'm thinking on it:

Amazed that God loves me soooo much.

Amazed at all the stuff He's made.

Amazed at what He did for me.

Wondering why I don't love Him more.

Feeling like I'm a lukewarm Christian.

Geuss what's on my birthday list.....

We're getting out all the spring clothes this week!!! It's a huge mess. We're taking the whole week off school, and we're doing what Mom calls a Work Week. I'm working at a neighbors house today with some siblings, then I'm gonna work on spring clothes. I'm working on learning Korean! I kinda feel like I'm cheating though because Lane's already made flash cards for it and I'm using hers. When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the chief officer in the temple of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin at the LORD’s temple. The next day, when Pashhur released him from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD’s name for you is not Pashhur, but Magor-Missabib. For this is what the LORD says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; with your own eyes you will see them fall by the sword of their enemies. " I would hate to be in that guys shoes. It tells a little further on that he's going to go into exile into Babylon and he and all his family would die there. If I were him I think I'd be terrified on every side too.

“Do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them, because I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their distress. Then the LORD said to me, “Do not pray for the well-being of this people.

Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go!

So apparently Jeremiah keeps on praying for mercy. But God knows the people of Israel won't listen to him if he doesn't actually punish them. It was something that needed to be done. I think it's sweet that Jeremiah pray for them like that.

“Why are we sitting here? Gather together! Let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there! For the LORD our God has doomed us to perish and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against him. We hoped for peace but no good has come, for a time of healing but there was only terror. The snorting of the enemy’s horses is heard from Dan; at the neighing of their stallions the whole land trembles. They have come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who live there.” I noticed that they accepted their fate as something that was just bound to happen, not as a punishment. They didn't ask for mercy or repent, they just let the punishment come, and didn't even change their hearts.