Still Broken: Mary's Song

In an ordinary week

Some people are consoled by this verse and others are wounded by it, often in the same room. The writer almost certainly did not anticipate that. It is left for readers to carry.（ヤコブによる幼児福音書 23:3）

14But he said to them, You have not a fire so scorching as to make me play the coward.

マカバイ記四 10:14（Brenton 訳・七十人訳から（英語））

Pull a single verse out of its paragraph and you can make it say almost anything. This particular verse has been made to say a great deal. Which is precisely why it deserves to be read with what stands on either side of it.（ゼカリヤ書 8:6-10）

4Now shall ye see in Babylon gods of silver, and of gold, and of wood, borne upon shoulders, which cause the nations to fear.

5Beware therefore that ye in no wise be like to strangers, neither be ye afraid of them, when ye see the multitude before them and behind them, worshipping them.

エレミヤの手紙 1:4-5（Brenton 訳・七十人訳から（英語））

Let me set the terms. This is not an argument about doctrinal correctness. It is one reader's account of what the text can be made to yield. I am going to leave the ending open on purpose.

（哀歌 第4章）

In its own century

The first time I read this passage I understood nothing at all. I carried that incomprehension around for years, and then one afternoon it turned slightly, the way a key turns, and something opened. What follows is an attempt to describe the turn.

Put the translations side by side and the same verse arrives differently each time. One is soft, another is severe, and the original is a third thing that is neither. That difference is itself a way in.

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.

6鉢をもって酒を飲み、 いとも尊い油を身にぬり、 ヨセフの破滅を悲しまない者たちよ。

アモス書 6:6（口語訳（日本語））