Reference links:
Old Testament
Apparently Ezekiel is also into performance art. After Ezekiel receives another vision in which God reemphasizes to Ezekiel that he will be God’s prophet and, as such, is compelled to deliver the message God asks him to deliver, he receives further instructions. God wants him to symbolize the sins, the seize, and the destruction of Israel by laying on his side, and staring at an image of the siege of Jerusalem. At some point, he’ll have to eat bread cooked over dried human dung (later, at Ezekiel’s request, changed to cow dung). Later, he’ll use his hair to symbolize the death and exile coming to the people of Israel.
Ezekiel is to deliver the message that the people of Israel and Judah have displeased God and will receive his anger. He will destroy them and their homeland, scattering a remnant of them. This remnant will someday recognize the wrong they have done.
New Testament
The author of Hebrews makes a tenuous connection between God resting in the creation story and the wandering ancient Israelites not being able to enter the promised land, their place of rest. He then tries to make the case that the coming of Jesus signifies a second chance after the chance lost by the wandering Israelites.
The reading finishes with a passage which discusses how Jesus understands us because he was tempted like we are (but can act as the ultimate High Priest because he did not sin). Does this imply that God does not understand his creation? I have always considered that a weakness of the guess that the reason that Jesus had to become human and die was so that Jesus could be a fully understanding mediator for humanity. It is not a view that is problematic in and of itself, but it becomes problematic in light of standard ideas of God’s omniscience.
Psalms and Proverbs
Good proverbs although, sadly, not always true:
If you set a trap for others,
you will get caught in it yourself.
If you roll a boulder down on others,
it will crush you instead.