That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.
The blameless are fired upon from concealment, struck without warning and without any dread on the part of the assailants. Their weapon is speech, the tongue honed like a blade and bitter utterances fitted like arrows to a drawn bow. The assault is plotted in hidden consultation and open defiance, where wrongdoers embolden each other to persist in wrongdoing. They set traps out of sight and pursue wrong with thorough, probing inquiry into evil.
This portrayal is to meet an exact, literal realization. Those who launch the attack will come under divine judgment, while those who are upright will place confidence in God and endure the trial. The realization arrives in the shaking of all that is shakable so that only the unshakable endures, at which point there will be a clean and consecrated community that remains firm under testing. To be ready for that hour each believer is now to investigate the inner life closely, as if holding a lit candle to it.
The blameless are fired upon from concealment, struck without warning and without any dread on the part of the assailants. Their weapon is speech, the tongue honed like a blade and bitter utterances fitted like arrows to a drawn bow. The assault is plotted in hidden consultation and open defiance, where wrongdoers embolden each other to persist in wrongdoing. They set traps out of sight and pursue wrong with thorough, probing inquiry into evil.
This portrayal is to meet an exact, literal realization. Those who launch the attack will come under divine judgment, while those who are upright will place confidence in God and endure the trial. The realization arrives in the shaking of all that is shakable so that only the unshakable endures, at which point there will be a clean and consecrated community that remains firm under testing. To be ready for that hour each believer is now to investigate the inner life closely, as if holding a lit candle to it.