Jeremiah 26:8-16 Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people… One thousand eight hundred years ago an aged saint was being led into Rome by ten rough Roman soldiers, to be thrown to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre. Can you imagine anything more dreary and deplorable? Was he unhappy? Did he count cruelty and martyrdom as evil? No. In one of the seven letters that he wrote on his way, he says: "Come fire and iron, come rattling of wild beasts, cutting and mangling and wrenching of my bones, come hacking of my limbs, come crushing of my whole body, come cruel tortures of the devil to assail me! Only be it mine to attain to Jesus Christ! What are those words of St. Ignatius but an echo of the apostle's, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss that I may win Christ"? How well the early Christians understood these things by which we opportunists, cringing cowards, effeminate time-servers, as most of us are in this soft. sensuous, hypocritical age, have so utterly forgotten! (Dean Farrar.). Parallel Verses KJV: Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die. |
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