| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tanach: Numbers 9: 10 'Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If any man of you or of your generations shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover unto the LORD;
Numbers 9: 11 in the second month on the fourteenth day at dusk they shall keep it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs;
Numbers 9: 12 they shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break a bone thereof; according to all the statute of the passover they shall keep it.
Numbers 9: 13 But the man that is clean, and is not on a journey, and forbeareth to keep the passover, that soul shall be cut off from his people; because he brought not the offering of the LORD in its appointed season, that man shall bear his sin.
Numbers 9: 14 And if a stranger shall sojourn among you, and will keep the passover unto the LORD: according to the statute of the passover, and according to the ordinance thereof, so shall he do; ye shall have one statute, both for the stranger, and for him that is born in the land.'
Numbers 9: 15 And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, even the tent of the testimony; and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until morning.
Numbers 9: 16 So it was alway: the cloud covered it, and the appearance of fire by night.
The Tanach |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: Name and power, dangerous to touch. But the prophets of old were
masters in this; also the apostles, especially St. Paul, who did
not allow it to trouble them whether the highest or the lowest
priest had said it, or had done it in God's Name or in his own.
They looked on the works and words, and held them up to God's
Commandment, no matter whether big John or little Nick said it,
or whether they had done it in God's Name or in man's. And for
this they had to die, and of such dying there would be much more
to say in our time, for things are much worse now. But Christ and
St. Peter and Paul must cover all this with their holy names, so
that no more infamous cover for infamy has been found on earth
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: barrel'd beef: the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement
in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the
great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are
no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat
yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure
at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be
constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might
have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and
christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about
A Modest Proposal |
