Yet I Remain Faithful
Filthy and foul I found you,
garnished in grime,
drenched in dust,
polluted in your own putrid blood,
orphaned, alone, helpless.
Pity overtook me to love,
to cleanse you of your stench,
to let you live.
As you came of age,
I made a wedding promise
to provide, protect,
and never forsake you.
I bathed you in benevolence,
coddled you with compassion.
I fed you feasts of fancy flour, oil, and honey.
I covered your nakedness
with the finest fabrics of fur, linen, and silk.
Gold and gems galore, I graciously gifted upon you.
Through a lover's eyes,
how alluring you were to look upon.
Passionately, we pleasured ourselves
upon our sacred marriage bed.
Soon you fled to the wanting world,
flaunting your youthful beauty
in sleazy streets.
Jewels jostled and bangles bounced about
your lovely body, loud with lust.
In haughtiness, you uncovered yourself
of the costly garments I gave you
and laid them at strangers' feet in whoredom.
The delicacies I fed you with
were stolen to spoon feed your lovers.
My gifts of gold were bestowed
to beg strangers' favor.
My love, you plundered our partaking,
aborting the fruit of our conception
to be free to roam,
forsaking all our children to the fire.
With wandering wanton eyes,
you despised the one
who knew you from youth,
who loved you to life.
Far and wide, you spread your treachery
to strangers' selfish desires,
to increase your queendom of whoredom.
My bride, you caused me to fret nightly,
bawling upon our squandered marriage bed,
flaming with jealous anger.
Whorish wife, your heart withered weak,
fleeing to every flutter.
In infidelity, your desires remained insatiable
and you lusted after greater lewdness.
You continually conceived in evil
to cast more blood from your fiercely consuming body.
Ceaselessly, you sullied yourself as I bore the burden.
Have your worthless wooers as you please ---
divide your heart and thrash mine.
Play the harlot and inherit her price.
Let them annihilate you
to the judgment of an adulteress,
casting stones and swinging with their swords.
Let them burn your high dwellings,
rip off your jewels, and leave you openly naked.
Let them ravish you to nothing.
Humble your heart
to loath your lasciviousness
and be dropped to dust.
Remember your youth
and be consumed with sorrow and shame.
Then my anger will settle
and I will again take pity.
You tested me with zealous torment,
tearing your promise in twain,
but my covenant is true
and my faithfulness remains.
Turn fully from your filth
and return to my lavish love
so that you may live.
Inspiration: Ezekiel 16
A picture of Israel's idolatry and God's faithfulness
1/25/2020
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