Unprayable the Exodus Road

Leaving the question open

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.（ネヘミヤ記 2:16）

7And in the day of the king's birth every month they were brought by bitter constraint to eat of the sacrifices; and when the feast of Bacchus was kept, the Jews were compelled to go in procession to Bacchus, carrying ivy.

8Moreover there went out a decree to the neighbour cities of the heathen, by the suggestion of Ptolemee, against the Jews, that they should observe the same fashions, and be partakers of their sacrifices:

9and whoso would not conform themselves to the manners of the Gentiles should be put to death. Then might a man have seen the present misery.

10For there were two women brought, who had circumcised their children; whom when they had openly led round about the city, the babes hanging at their breasts, they cast them down headlong from the wall.

11And others, that had run together into caves near by, to keep the sabbath day secretly, being discovered to Philip, were all burnt together, because they made a conscience to help themselves for the honour of the most sacred day.

マカバイ記二 6:7-11（Brenton 訳・七十人訳から（英語））

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.

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川々の門は開け、 宮殿はあわてふためく。

ナホム書 2:6（口語訳（日本語））

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.（ローマ人への手紙 4:10）