Have joy and peace in your hearts and a smile on your lips and then you can go and spread my word

Notes of meeting on 1 October 2013

Have joy and peace in your hearts and a smile on your lips and then you can go and spread my word

Psalm 115

1 Not to us, Yahweh, not to us, but to your name give the glory, for your faithful love and your constancy! 2 Why should the nations ask, 'Where is their God?' 3 Our God is in heaven, he creates whatever he chooses. 4 They have idols of silver and gold, made by human hands. 5 These have mouths but say nothing, have eyes but see nothing, 6 have ears but hear nothing, have noses but smell nothing. 7 They have hands but cannot feel, have feet but cannot walk, no sound comes from their throats. 8 Their makers will end up like them, and all who rely on them. 9 House of Israel, rely on Yahweh; he is their help and their shield. 10 House of Aaron, rely on Yahweh; he is their help and their shield. 11 You who fear Yahweh, rely on Yahweh; he is their help and their shield. 12 Yahweh will keep us in mind, he will bless, he will bless the House of Israel, he will bless the House of Aaron, 13 he will bless those who fear Yahweh, small and great alike. 14 May Yahweh add to your numbers, yours and your children's too! 15 May you be blessed by Yahweh, who made heaven and earth. 16 Heaven belongs to Yahweh, but earth he has given to the children of Adam. 17 The dead cannot praise Yahweh, those who sink into silence, 18 but we, the living, shall bless Yahweh, henceforth and for ever.

Isaiah 57 v 14-21

14 Then it will be said: Level up, level up, clear the way, remove the obstacle from my people's way, 15 for thus says the High and Exalted One who lives eternally and whose name is holy, 'I live in the holy heights but I am with the contrite and humble, to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of the contrite. 16 'For I do not want to be forever accusing nor always to be angry, or the spirit would fail under my onslaught, the souls that I myself have made. 17 'Angered by his wicked cupidity, I hid and struck him in anger, but he rebelliously went the way of his choice. 18 'I saw how he behaved, but I shall heal him, I shall lead him, fill him with consolation, him and those who mourn for him, 19 bringing praise to their lips. Peace, peace to far and near, Yahweh says, and I shall heal him.' 20 The wicked, however, are like the restless sea that cannot be still, whose waters throw up mud and dirt. 21 'No peace', says Yahweh, 'for the wicked.'

Jonah 4 v 1 - 11

1 This made Jonah very indignant; he fell into a rage. 2 He prayed to Yahweh and said, 'Please, Yahweh, isn't this what I said would happen when I was still in my own country? That was why I first tried to flee to Tarshish, since I knew you were a tender, compassionate God, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, who relents about inflicting disaster. 3 So now, Yahweh, please take my life, for I might as well be dead as go on living.' 4 Yahweh replied, 'Are you right to be angry?' 5 Jonah then left the city and sat down to the east of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, to see what would happen to the city. 6 Yahweh God then ordained that a castor-oil plant should grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head and soothe his ill-humour; Jonah was delighted with the castor-oil plant. 7 But at dawn the next day, God ordained that a worm should attack the castor-oil plant -- and it withered. 8 Next, when the sun rose, God ordained that there should be a scorching east wind; the sun beat down so hard on Jonah's head that he was overcome and begged for death, saying, 'I might as well be dead as go on living.' 9 God said to Jonah, 'Are you right to be angry about the castor-oil plant?' He replied, 'I have every right to be angry, mortally angry!' 10 Yahweh replied, 'You are concerned for the castor-oil plant which has not cost you any effort and which you did not grow, which came up in a night and has perished in a night. 11 So why should I not be concerned for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?'