Reading for July 17th

Chs.60-62: After the setbacks and dissensions of chs. 56-59, chs. 60-62 recover the vision of the future central to chs. 40-55. Jerusalem will be rebuilt, a city of peace and righteousness. These chapters reflect the spiritual reawakening that came with the rebuilding and restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem in 520-515 BCE. More broadly, these chapters express a positive, if ideal, prtrayal of human beings living in peace, prosperity, and harmony. They reveal a goal to strive for, not a simplistic expectation of a condition of human happiness that will drop down as a gift from heaven. Read Isaiah 60.1-7. Visions of the new Jerusalem. In verses 1-87: The expected return had not occurred. At best, only token numbers of the former population had come back. The vision of a great return was still a distant dream. A new pattern of Jewish life emerged that established rules of conduct for living as peaceably as possible in alien lands. comments or Questions..