Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah.
The folly of defying God
As you stood some stormy day upon a sea-cliff, and marked the giant billow rise from the deep, to rush on with foaming crest, and throw itself thundering on the trembling shore, did you ever fancy that you could stay its course, and hurl it back to the depths of ocean! Did you ever stand beneath the laden, lowering cloud, and mark the lightning’s leap, as it shot and flashed dazzling athwart the gloom, and think that you could grasp the bolt and change its path! Still more foolish and vain his thought who fancies that he can arrest or turn aside the purpose of God, saying: “What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? Let us break His bands asunder, and cast away His cords from us!” Break His bands asunder! How He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh! (Guthrie.)