I PETER CHAPTER 1 - 5

1 PETER

There's no question of authenticity.
Peter himself must have written this spree.
The Gospels show him one impetuous,
And this disorganized in omnibus
Shows just the man. Everything that can be
Said in a nutshell appears in degree.
Peter is not my favourite by a shot,
And yet after my reading him a lot,
I think the world would be a dimmer place
If he had never shown his homely face.
Beloved, let Peter live in Rome or here
Within my chambered heart and without fear,
But let me joy in every word he's said
Despite the night when the disciples fled.

1 PETER 1

1 Peter, apostle of Jesus
The Christ, to the pilgrims that thus
Inhabit the Diaspora
In Pontus, and in Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia, as far
As Bithynia, 2 elect star
According to foreknowledge of
God the Father, and in the love,
Sanctification of the Spirit,
For the obeying, and what’s near it,
Blood sprinkling of Jesus the Christ:
Grace to you and Islam (peace) sufficed.

I am not satisfied with sprinkled blood:
Cain brought the fruit in time before the Flood
And Abel sacrificed the bleeding lamb
Without command before came Abraham.
It’s humankind demand the blood in claim,
It’s human hearts that feed on offering’s flame,
And Your command is just to limit all
That human hands slay on the altar’s call.
One’s sanctified by spirit, not bloodshed,
Though You knew what path in which would be led
The Christ. So many focus on the red,
Forgetting that the word obeying comes
To set aside the sacrificial sums.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of
Our Lord Jesus the Christ, whose love,
Abundant mercy has begotten
Us to a living hope unsoughten
Again through resurrection’s stead
Of Jesus Christ up from the dead,
4 To an inheritance as sound
And incorruptible and found
As undefiled and that does not
Fade, but reserved in heavenly plot
For you, 5 who are kept by the power
Of God through faith until the hour
For salvation to be revealed
In the last time by prophets sealed.

Salvation is not revealed on a cross
Or any other tree of fatal loss
But in the last time, where the risen Christ
Prays interceding where his prayers sufficed.
Salvation’s heritage is not to dung
That from a bloody torture stake is wrung,
But undefiled and incorruptible
In heavenly places where the thing is full.
My hope is in the penitence I find
Before the Decalogue and unresigned
To satisfaction with a life laid bare
Without obedience to cover care.
Your power, Beloved, is infinite to see
And surely in Your will it can keep me.

6 In this you greatly rejoice, though
Now for a little while, if though
Need be, you’re grieved by divers trials,
7 That your faith’s purity the whiles,
More precious than perishing gold,
Though tested by the fire blindfold,
May be found to praise, honour, glory
At time of revelation’s story
Of Jesus Christ, 8 whom you’ve not seen,
And yet you love. Though now the screen
Keeps you from seeing, yet believing,
You rejoice with joy of receiving
The inexpressible and full
Of glory, 9 receiving the wool,
The end of your faith, what is more,
The salvation at your souls’ door.

Uranium, plutonium at last
Perish after some half-lives have gone past.
But gold and lead, heavy to hand and eye,
Remain millennia beneath the sky.
Beloved, is my faith of more permanence
Than god’s flesh that the heathen count in pence?
Praised be, the night work without dreams is done,
And the fight of the dusty day is won!
Let patience then reward the stumbling feet
That dance and whirl despite the lost retreat
That beacons always to find hiding place.
Let that place be before Your holy face
Remaining when all gold has turned to naught,
When all faces return to One unbought.

10 Of this salvation prophets do
Inquire and search carefully, who
Prophesied of the grace that would
Come to you, 11 and searching what could,
Or what manner of time, the spirit
Of Christ who was in them or near it
Was indicating when he said
In witness beforehand and led
The sufferings of Christ and the glories
That would follow that in their stories.

The saving that the prophets wrote about
Was not that of Ashtoreth and the shout
Of Baal as sun-god in the flaming grave.
The message was a different one to save.
You did not accept Baal in former times,
You do not accept Baal today for crimes,
But You alone are Saviour of the true,
The ones who come in faith and come to do
According to Your Decalogue in grace.
For faithfulness to Torah Jesus’ trace
Of suffering fell upon the garden ground.
He was no dupe of Ashtoreth to sound
In cakes and wine to heaven’s queen in fear
The crops would not grow without his death near.

12 To them it was revealed that, not
To themselves, but to us untaught
They were ministering the things which
Now have been reported at pitch
To you through those who have been preaching
The gospel to you in the teaching
Of the holy spirit sent from
Heaven, things which angels have come
To desire to look in its reaching.

The angels of the skies desire to look
Into the wonders of Enoch’s fair book,
And they themselves are characters unbound
To see the glories of Your throne around.
The angels of the skies come with the glow
Of praise to You instead of heathen show
Of human sacrifice. The one is raised
Without the sight of death, then be You praised.
Beloved, I too desire to see the page
Of Your salvation and Your heritage.
I too desire to see the wondered way
That Enoch took up into heaven’s sway
To see the angels bending in their task
Of guiding earth in space by sun to bask.

13 So gird up the loins of your mind,
Be sober, rest your hopes combined
Upon the grace that’s to be brought
To you at the appearing sought
Of Jesus Christ, 14 as obedient
Children, not conforming to bent
Lusts, as once in your ignorance,
15 But as He who called you is holy,
Be also holy in your dance,
16 Because it is written, “Be holy,
For I am holy.” 17 If you call
On the Father, who without all
Partiality judges by each
One’s work (and not by what they preach),
Conduct yourselves throughout the time
Of your stay here in fear of mime,
18 Knowing that you were not redeemed
With corruptible things that seemed,
Like silver or gold, from your aimless
Conduct got by fathers’ not blameless
Tradition, 19 but with precious blood
Of Christ, as of a lamb in bud
Without blemish and without spot.

Good Peter asks that I be sober now
And obey You with hand and heart and brow.
He calls for holiness and not the state
Of rampage in ecstatic sound and rate.
He does not ask the gyring of the dance
Of Baal and Ashtoreth, the Horus prance,
But only to obey the Decalogue
And leave the heathen jumping in their fog.
If Jesus’ blood is precious, it is not
There to buy off a license in the plot
Allowing sin and freedom from Your law,
But there to show the sinfulness in awe
That humankind sink to before the word
Made flesh in deed and heart now to be stirred.

20 He was in the foreordained plot
Before foundation of the world,
But manifest in these last times
For you 21 who through his flag unfurled
Believe in God, who for their crimes
Raised him from the dead, gave him glory,
So that your faith and promissory
Hope are in God. 22 Since you have made
Your souls pure in the truth obeyed
Through the Spirit in sincere love
Of the brothers, fervently love
One another with a pure heart,
23 Having been born again, apart
From seed corruptible, but born
Incorruptible, through the sworn
Word of God which lives and abides
Forever, 24 because “All flesh rides
As grass, and all man’s glory slides
As blossoms of the grass. The grass
Withers, and its flower falls to pass
Away, 25 “But the word of the Lord
Endures forever like a sword.”
Now this is the word which by true
Gospel was taught and preached to you.

There is no one who’s in the business of
Buying and selling souls from hand to glove
In exchange for the blood of man or beast,
Or even a god-man to say the least.
But if the evil that men do to reach
A place of power to oppress or to preach
Conflicts with Your word sent to live in flesh
So that the man dies in the sinful mesh,
Then that redemption proves the glowing face
Of empire to be lacking in all grace.
Beloved, I come to You alone in faith
Of Your salvation in omnipotence,
And lay aside the saving of the wraith
Or any other who takes recompense.

1 PETER 2

1 Therefore, laying aside all spite,
Deceit, hypocrisy in sight,
Envy, and all evil speaking,
2 As newborn babes, desire the sting
Of pure milk of the word, that you
May grow thereby, 3 if indeed you
Have tasted how gracious is YHWH.

Beloved, I’ve tasted grace from Psalms till now,
And find the pure milk squirting on my brow
As I am bold to suckle at the page
Of Hebrew cantillated at my age.
I leave the pagan envy and deceit
Of dying gods and rising to retreat,
I leave the vain hypocrisy and all
The evil spoken against You in stall,
And take the grace that You bring in Your Word
That speaks of mercy in faith undeterred.
As newborn babe, I lisp the sounds once more
Of Decalogue and meet You on its shore.
The taste of Your word is sweet to the tongue
Of one so pure as I and one so young!

4 Coming to him as to a stone
Living and vital, let alone
Indeed by men, but chosen by
God and most precious in His eye,
5 You also, as living stones, are
Being built up a temple far,
A holy priesthood, to offer
Up spiritual sacrifices that
Are acceptable to God at
Jesus the Christ come up to bat.

I doubt not that the rams and goats that bled
In old Jerusalem by altar led
Expressed the prayers of saints when they were fed.
But now I take hold of a better way,
The spiritual sacrifice instead of sway
Of beasts and men led out to die and pray.
If Jesus teaches mankind anything,
As a Messiah or a heavenly king,
It’s that blood shed by beast or man or ring
Of gods and goddesses is of no worth,
But only sacrifices of the birth
Of praise, petition, penitence and plaint
Before Your throne, Beloved, by every saint.
So shall rise undefiled both heaven and earth.

6 So it also contained the scroll:
“Indeed, I lay in Zion a toll
Of cornerstone, elect and fine,
Precious beyond both gem and wine,
And he who believes on him will
By no means be given shame’s bill.”
7 So to you who believe, he’s worth
Above all, but to those in berth
Of disobedience, “The stone which
The builders had cast in the ditch,
He has become chief cornerstone,”
8 And “A stone of stumbling and groan
Of offence.” They stumble, for they
Are disobedient to the way
Of the word, to which they also
Were appointed and set in row.
9 But you’re a chosen generation,
A royal priesthood, holy nation,
His own special folk, that you may
Proclaim the praises of his way
Who called you out of darkness to
His marvellous light now in view,
10 Who once were not a folk, but now
The people of God anyhow,
Who had not obtained mercy but
Now have obtained mercy in glut.
11 Beloved, I beg you as sojourners
And pilgrims, abstain from the burners
Of fleshly lusts which will attack
The soul, 12 having conduct unslack
In honour among the Gentiles,
That when they utter in their guiles
Things against you as evildoers,
They may, by your good works on skewers
Which they observe, glorify God
In the day of coming on sod.

There are two categories of folk here:
Those who believe and those who will appear
As disobedient upon the row.
By this Peter comes here alone to show
That faith and obeying are of one mesh,
And disobedience unfaithful fresh.
I can choose to have faith and so obey,
Or disobey in disbelief to stay.
There is no option of sweet Christian found:
To disobey and still have one’s faith sound.
I choose Your faith, Beloved, and when I find
The accusations fall about my rind,
Then I cling to obedience and let
You compensate the lies that I forget.

13 Submit yourselves to every law
Of man for the Lord's sake in awe,
Whether it be to the king great,
14 Or to the governors of state,
As unto those who're sent by Him
For punishment of sinners grim,
And for the praise of those who do
The good and keep good in their view.
15 For so is the said will of God,
That with well doing under rod
You may put to silence at last
The ignorance of fools outcast.

The implication's governors of state
Are fools outcast despite their role in rate
To punish sinners for their sin and hate.
They may or may not praise those who do well
Under Your law and under Gospel's spell.
After their term of power, they'll go to hell.
And yet submission to the power is neat,
Required beneath imperial retreat.
Beloved, my will's submitted to Your own
Until there is no will but Your's alone.
I take the good sense of beggar of bone
And give the mugger what he wants in stone,
And so survive to strive a wicked way
Alive, alive beside my lakeside spray.

16 Though free, not using liberty
To cover a malicious spree,
But as servants of God's decree.
17 Honour all men, the brotherhood
Love. Fear God. Give king praise as should.
18 Servants, be subject to the will
Of masters with all fear to fill,
Not only to the good and sweet,
But also to the wicked cheat.
19 For this is thankworthy and meet,
If a man for conscience to God
Endure grief, suffer wrong at prod.
20 For what glory is it, if when
You're buffeted for faults again,
You take it patiently? But if,
When you do well, and suffer stiff,
And take it patiently, this thing
Is received with God who is King.

Reality is that injustice reigns
Upon the earth, and so existence pains
The holy soul more than one who disdains
Your holy Decalogue of ten chillblains.
In fact it is a glory if a man
Suffers in patience punishment in span
For what he really did. And the one who
Complains of unjust punishment in pew
Has got a point. But Peter thinks the rue
Is bearable if patience seasons stew.
You do in fact receive the sacrifice
As worthy of reward if I am nice
To those who treat me unjustly in crew?
I flee back to predestination's view.

21 For even to this very thing
You have been called, because Christ too
Also suffer for us in crew,
Leaving for us example true,
That you should follow in his ways,
22 Who did no sin, nor was the craze
Of guile found in his mouth, 23 but who
When he was reviled, reviled not
Again, when he suffered from plot,
He did not threaten, but committed
Himself to Him who judges fitted,
24 Who bore his own self our sins in
His own body on the tree's kin,
That we, as dead to sins, should live
Unto the righteousness to give
The stripes whereby you're healed from sin.
25 For you were as sheep gone astray,
But now returned into the way
Of the shepherd and overseer
Of your souls, the Lord who is dear.

Each man and each apostle has a thought
For why the death of Jesus should be sought.
Some say it pays the devil's price to buy
Back souls from their perdition on the sly.
Some say it pays You for Your broken law,
Or wakens love before the rule of claw.
But Peter sees its value in the way
The dear lord was so patient night and day.
Salvation by the patience of the lord
Is just as good as any theory floored.
Beloved, if You've set me among elect,
Then give me patience to be circumspect,
To round my persecution complex first
And so remove myself from the accursed.

1 PETER 3

1 Likewise, you wives, subject yourselves
Under your husbands, the sly elves,
So if any one does not try
To obey the word, without cry
Of the word, they may be won by
The good behaviour of the wives,
2 As they see your chaste way contrives
In your behaviour charmed with fear.
3 Don't let your make-up then appear
On the outside, with fancy hair,
And wearing gold, designer wear,
4 But the inside beauty of heart,
Which has no corruption in part,
A meek and quiet spirit's art,
Which is of great price in God's sight.

Paul's got the reputation of the day
For chauvinistic male in every way,
But Peter's just as good when come to say
That wives should submit to their husbands' way.
He justifies it by the promise they
May see the sweetness on the women's tray
And so be charmed to walk a better path,
One without sin and also without wrath.
Beloved, like Gabirol's son I have no
Beauty upon the sleeve or in the show,
But beg You that my inner beauty may
Give me a hopeful and a sweeter ray.
Depravity's the doctrine come to slay,
But You elect a living, brighter glow.

5 For this way in the ancient time
The holy women also climb
Who trusted in God, to adorn
Themselves, subjecting without scorn
To their own husbands to be borne.
6 As Sara obeyed Abraham,
Calling him lord, so you like lamb
Are her daughters, as long as you
Do well, and are not scared to view.
7 You husbands too, live with them too
According to knowledge, and give
Honour to the wife as you live
With weaker vessel, and as being
Heirs both together and agreeing
In the grace of life, that your prayers
May not be hindered on the stairs.

The afterthought to husbands is too late.
Wives have already suffered common fate.
This is just what I mean by Peter's gait:
He is not organized in better state.
If he had spoken first to husbands, then
Emancipation would have given men
The right and duty, privilege again
To honour their own wives in their own den.
It is no use, now, my Beloved, to speak
After the wives have been struck down as weak,
Submitted to their husbands at the cheek.
But whether Peter utters truth or not
And in the proper order of things sought,
I still follow You in diviner plot.

8 At last, be all of one mind and
Have compassion each for the stand,
And love as brothers, having pity,
Be courteous to all in the city,
9 Not paying back the bad for bad,
Or railing for the railing had;
But on the contrary, a blessing,
Knowing you're so called by addressing,
That you should inherit a blessing.

I wonder if Reeves and good Muggleton
Had read this word of God when they'd begun
To curse the Quakers for the way they'd done.
I've always admired and envied the gun
Of Muggleton and every sacred son
Whose quaint materialist theology
Made You existent and the devil free.
At least the common mind admits You're one.
Beloved, there is compassion of the word,
But when the practice comes upon the herd,
I find it lacking. That's because we're flesh
And matter and be evening we're not fresh.
It's You imagine that human frailty
Is choice of matter before hungry tree.

10 For he who will love life, and see
Good days, let him refrain his tongue
From evil, and his lips to be
Speaking no guile of old or young.
11 Let him turn from evil, do good;
Let him seek peace well as he should.
12 For the eyes of the Lord regard
The righteous and His ears are starred
To hear their prayers; but the Lord's face
Is against evil-doers' race.

Peter affirms in chapters one to three
Predestination as divine decree,
And then he offers commandment and choice
As though human hearts really could rejoice.
Fact is that three commandments can be done
Only because Your eyes choose when to run
Upon the human heart: to control tongue,
To turn to good when the heart is still young,
And to submit to peace or Islam's rung,
All are result of Your eye and Your hand.
The good upon the earth are Your command.
Beloved, hear my prayer too, though righteousness
Is not mine or found at my own address,
But is Yours only both to know or guess.

13 And who is he that will harm you,
If you are followers and true
Of what is good? 14 But if you suffer
For righteousness' sake, you're a buffer:
So do not fear their terror nor
Be troubled by their evil store.
15 But sanctify the Lord God in
Your hearts, and be ready with din
Always to give an answer to
Every man that may ask of you
A reason for the hope in you,
With meekness and with fear in view.
16 Have a good conscience, so if they
Speak evil of you in their way,
They may be ashamed that falsely
Accuse your good behaviour free
In Christ. 17 For it is better, if
The will of God be so, that stiff
You suffer for well doing, than
For evil doing under scan.

How many read the word out of context,
And cause more trouble for the brief perplexed!
The answer that You hope is ready, quick
Is not proof of our prejudices slick.
It's rather to keep You in heart and mind,
So that our response to wicked unkind
Shows that we know no true harm come behind
Those who are patient and meek fearing You.
Beloved, give me no answer for my creed,
No justifying argument for deed,
But only the response that shows You true
And my behaviour governed by Your view,
And I shall find Your sovereign throne in touch
With earth's injustice without needing crutch.

18 For Christ also has suffered once
For sins, the just for unjust dunce,
That he might bring us back to God
As put to death in fleshly clod,
But quickened by the Spirit's prod;
19 By which he also went and preached
To spirits in prison chains reached,
20 Which were once disobedient,
When the patience of God was rent
Waiting in Noah's days unspent,
While the ark was in preparation,
Wherein few, that is, eight in station
Survived water's annihilation.
21 The same figure baptism takes
To save us now also from stakes,
Not putting off the fleshly dirt,
But giving answer not to hurt
A conscience good toward God alert,
By Jesus Christ in resurrection,
22 Who's gone to heaven for inspection,
And is on the right hand of God;
Angels, authorities, and prod
Of powers made subject to His rod.

The Gospel does not tell us when Your son
Went to preach to the chained Watchers undone
That Enoch mentions in his book for fun.
The Spirit led him to the wilderness,
It led him from the grave to heaven's address,
And somewhere in between it led him to
The Watchers chained in anguish in their pew.
The evidence of this is not that You
Have made the souls immortal all in crew,
But that the Protestants and Catholics hew
The Bible down to books at least too few.
It proves along with Jude that I should take
Enoch as well as Paul for Peter's sake,
And after that abide in Word that's true.

1 PETER 4

1 Forasmuch then as Christ has suffered
For us in the flesh, armed and buffered
Be likewise with the same mind too;
For the one who's suffered in flesh
Has ceased to be in sinful mesh.
2 So he should live the rest of time
No longer in the flesh to crime
Of human lusts, but to God's will.
3 For the time past of our life ill
May be enough for us to fill
The will of the Gentiles in bill,
When we walked in lasciviousness,
In lusts, and in the wine's excess,
In revellings, and banquetings,
And in idolatries' gross flings,
4 Wherein they think it a strange case
That you no longer run their race
In the same riot of excess,
Speaking evil of your address,
5 Who shall give account to the One
Ready to judge the living run
And the dead when the dead are done.
9 Use hospitality within
For one another without grudging.
10 As every man got without fudging
The gift, so minister the same
To one another, as in claim
Of good stewards of glorious flame
Of the grace of God come in fame.
11 If any one speaks, let him speak
As oracles of God to seek;
If any one serves, let him serve
As he can by God's gift not swerve:
So God in all things may be praised
Through Jesus Christ to whom be raised
Praise and dominion once again,
For ever and ever. Amen.

It is not strange that some may think it strange
That my behaviour comes to make a change
After election and the call in range
Sent out from You and from eternity.
I submit merely to divine decree.
I may have chafed against wages of sin,
I may have stumbled and cursed not to win,
But on a sudden, without merit found,
And without effort to stand on the ground,
I come outside the race to pace the mace,
And live in violence beneath Your grace.
I shall live to give my account to You,
And hear the judgement on the things I do,
But recognize at last all's in Your view.

6 For this cause was the Gospel preached
Also to them that are dead reached,
That they might be judged according
To men in the flesh, but live by
God in the spirit now come nigh.
7 But end of all things is at hand;
So be you sober in command
To watch in prayer on sea and land.
8 Above all things have fervent love
Among yourselves, for love above
Shall cover multitudes of sin.

The Gospel has been preached for centuries
And to those long dead in the earthly freeze,
But it remains to require judgement set
By all society upon Your pet.
The Gospel sound stands still to quicken by
Your spirit the men in the flesh who vie
By Your election and Your sovereign will
To cover sin by love, justice fulfil.
Beloved, I've heard the Gospel message found
Not in the preaching of churches around,
But in the reading of the written Word
That strikes my heart again and my heart's stirred.
And so I watch and pray, and pray again
For fervent love increased upon my den.

12 Beloved, do not think it thing strange
Concerning fiery trial ranged
To try you, as though some strange thing
Occurred against you on the wing.
13 But rejoice rather, inasmuch
As you're partakers of the touch
Of Christ in sufferings; so when shows
His glory, you in joy repose
In gladness exceeding in throes.
14 If you're reproached for name of Christ,
You're happy; for spirit sufficed
Of glory and of God's on you:
For them he's spoken ill of too,
But on your part he's glorified.

At last I find apostle and a man
Who will respect my own thought of Your plan,
That Jesus suffered death, not in the span
Of punishment or runnishment in tan,
But just participating in the way
That men and women are still pained today.
Participation in suffering's the core
Of Jesus' action all his life and more.
Beloved, I have no choice but to take part
In all punishments that fill human cart,
But if he came from heavenly courts by art
And had a choice, whether to do or not,
Then that was brave of him, kind of Your plot.
To have choice differs perhaps not a lot.

15 But let none of you suffer for
Murder or theft or evil doer,
Or as a busybody in
Other men's matters come to sin.
16 If any as a Christian wait,
Let him not be ashamed of fate;
But let him glorify his God
On this behalf upon the sod.

Beloved, the blessing's granted to the one
Who suffers as a Christian in his run.
But I'm rejected by the Christian crowd,
As for Samaritans, I'm not allowed,
I was not born a Jew, the Muslim race
Would rather never see of me a trace.
I suffer if I suffer as mere man,
And not adherent of the church or plan.
Am I then all excluded from the rate
Of blessing that falls on the other pate?
Beloved, though no church welcomes me in door,
I love Your Christ more than another chore,
And though I suffer nothing for his name,
I suffer alone with or without shame.

17 For the time's come that judgement must
Begin at the house of God's trust:
And if it first begins with us,
What shall the end be of the dust
That don't obey God's Gospel fuss?
18 If the righteous is scarcely saved,
Where shall the ungodly ones braved
And sinner appear in the waived?
19 So let the ones who suffer still
According to the divine will
Commit the keeping of their souls
To Him in well doing for goals,
As to faithful Creator's shoals.

Some count in hand twenty-three hundred days
Until the latter year of hope and praise,
And say the judgement started with the room
Of righteous dead before the coming doom
Of righteous living. So the way appears
That hardly any sinners saved from fears
Can hope for future happiness from tears.
Good Peter's heart goes out to those left by
Without a destined living in the sky.
The only answer is commit to You
And trust the best is just what You will do.
Beloved, though I may run to final death,
I thank and praise You with my every breath,
And welcome happiness as well as rue.

1 PETER 5

1 The elders who are among you
I exhort, who am elder too,
And witness of Christ's sufferings' view,
And also a partaker of
The glory to be seen in love.
2 Feed God's flock which is among you,
Taking the oversight in view,
Not by constraint, but willingly;
Not for the filthy lucre's fee,
But of a ready mind and free.
3 Neither as being lords in state
Over the heritage, but wait
As good examples to the flock.
4 And when the chief shepherd shall knock,
You shall receive a glory's crown
Whose fading never shall come down.

The fate of those You chose to join the crowd
Of the saved is to live in two things loud:
The pain of Christ upon the cross and more,
His glory now and in the future store.
The pain and glory make the chosen shroud
That clothes the chosen ones before Your door,
And as the storms rush past the sky above,
The earth beneath is glorified by love.
The laurels fade, though lauras more are made
And heritages still compete for shade.
The chief shepherd may knock and knock again,
And in the divine will I'll open den,
If I hear the call on the universe,
Election beyond every earthly curse.

5 Likewise, you younger, submit to
The elder ones among the crew.
Indeed all of you be subject
One to another and expect
To be clothed with humility:
For God resists the proud degree,
And give grace to the humble free.
6 Humble yourselves under God's hand
Of might, and He will make you stand
In due time here upon the land.
7 Cast all your care on Him, for He
Cares for you and abundantly.
8 Be sober, vigilant, because
Your foe the devil with his claws
Walks round like raging lion to
Seek whom he may devour in crew.
9 Resist him in faith steadfastly,
Knowing the same afflictions' spree
Have fallen on your brothers too
That are in the world, much and few.
But the God of all grace, who's called
Us to eternal glory halled
By Christ Jesus, after you've been
In pain a while, take you from sin
And make you perfect, set and strengthen,
And settle you and your life lengthen.
11 To him be glory and dominion
Forever. Amen's my opinion.

Must the elect and chosen and the called
Also resist the devil and appalled?
It so appears. Beloved, no doubt I fail
In my resistance to the whole and hale.
Resist or not, I cast my bitter care
Upon the Christ who promises to share,
And find the days pass on from grey to grey
That silvers with the aging of the day.
Beloved, I still await perfection here,
Believing Peter's word of trumpeteer,
That glory and dominion at his face
Suffices to atone and raise to grace.
The son of David and Your son by call
Raises a lantern up against the wall.

12 By Silvanus, a faithful brother
To you, I guess I know no other,
I've written briefly, and with warning,
And testifying this, no scorning,
Is the true grace of were you
Are standing in the faith you view.
13 The ones at Babylon elect
Together with you, now expect
To greet you, as Marcus my son.
14 Greet one another when you've done
With a kiss sought in charity.
Peace be with you, women and men,
All in Christ Jesus. So, amen.

The kiss of charity is sacrament forgotten
By nearly all, except by Brethren soughten.
The seven sacraments or mysteries
Of Gospel are the following and these:
The kiss of charity, the washing feet,
The bread and wine delivered for a treat,
The love-feast and baptism three times down,
The blessing of the children in the town,
And the anointing by the elders' gown.
Beloved, I follow sacraments but rarely,
Just keeping to Your Decalogue and fairly,
But when occasion teaches me a thing
I too come in the holy dancing ring
And reach a hand to You unquestioning.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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