RELIGION AND ART

From Mount Hor the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea road, to bypass the land of Edom. But with their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!" In punishment the LORD sent among the people serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died. Then the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you, Pray the LORD to take the serpents away from us." So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses, "Make a serpent and mount it on a pole, and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live." Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.  Num. 21:4-9 Readings Textes liturgiques Prayer Psalm 13

But Susanna cried aloud:  "O eternal God, you know what s hidden and are aware of all things before they come to be: you know that they have testified falsely against me.  Here I am about to die, though I have done none of the things with which these wicked men have charged me." Readings Psalm 23

Thus says the LORD, who opens a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters, who leads out chariots and horsemen, and powerful army, till they lie prostrate together, never to rise, snuffed out and quenched like a wick. Remember not the event of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, river. Wild beasts honor me, jackals and ostriches, for I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might announce my praise.  Isa. 43:16-21 Readings

I knew their plot because the Lord informed me; at that time you, O Lord, showed me their doings. Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter, had not realized that they were hatching plots against me: "Let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will be spoken no more." But, you, O Lord of host, O just Judge, searcher of mind and heart. Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause! Jer. 11:18-20