Contemplative Bible Reading

Hosea 4:1-3 (New Living Translation)

1 Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel!
The Lord has brought charges against you, saying:
“There is no faithfulness, no kindness,
no knowledge of God in your land.
2 You make vows and break them;
you kill and steal and commit adultery.
There is violence everywhere—
one murder after another.
3 That is why your land is in mourning,
and everyone is wasting away.
Even the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the fish of the sea are disappearing.

Verse 3, the land mourns, everyone wastes, even the animals, birds, and fish disappear. Why this environmental disaster?

The people have disobeyed God.

Wait, not a good answer. Surely there is more here, more science, more technology, more abuse of these inventions.

Well, let’s read.

Lying is in there. That’s right. The politicians, the business people, those rich folks are lying to us about what they are doing. They are hiding the damage they do.

And those powerful people kill and steal. That’s right! They do those things and the rest of us suffer.

Wait, how did this “commit adultery” get in the list? What we do in the bedroom doesn’t affect the environment, does it? And how did that “no knowledge of God” get in there as well? I mean, what, read the Bible and the environment will be fine?

There is much here that doesn’t make sense. There is much here that we don’t want to read. We need some editing. We need God to listen to us instead of us listening to God, right?

Sorry. God is God; I am not. That is a good thing—for all of us and the environment as well.