Then Shall Your Light

The St. Barnabas Lutheran Church choir performs Jeff Whitmill's THEN SHALL YOUR LIGHT. Music © 2006 Jeff Whitmill. Video © 2010 Jeff Whitmill. All rights reserved.

THEN SHALL YOUR LIGHT
texts from Amos 1,2,5,6, Isaiah 58, Psalm 130

For crime after crime of Damascus
I will grant them no reprieve,
because they threshed Gilead under sledges spiked with iron.
Therefore, I will send fire to eat up the palaces;
I will crush the great men, and send the people away.

For crime after crime of the Ammonites
I will grant them no reprieve,
in their greed for land they invaded the ploughlands of Gilead.
Therefore I will set fire to the walls of their palaces;
war cries and whirlwinds shall carry them into exile.

For crime after crime of Judah
I will grant them no reprieve,
because they spurned the law of the Lord
and did not observe his decrees.
Therefore I will send fire upon Judah
that shall consume all the palaces of Jerusalem.

For crime after crime of Israel
I will grant them no reprieve,
because they sell the innocent for silver and the destitute for a pair of shoes.
They grind the heads of the poor into the earth
and thrust the humble out of their way.
They made the Nazirites drink wine,
and said to the prophets, You shall not speak.

You that turn justice upside down and bring righteousness to the ground,
You that persecute the guiltless, and throw the destitute out of court,
You that hate honesty in judges and loathe a man who tells the truth,
You that lay taxes on the poor and exact tribute from them,

Shame on you who live at ease,
and you, untroubled on the hills.

I hate, I spurn your pilgrim feasts;
I will not delight in your sacred ceremonies.
Spare me the sound, the sound of your songs; I cannot endure your music.

De profundis clamavi ad te, [Out of the depths I have cried to you,
Domine, Domine, Domine. O Lord.
Si delictorum memoriam servaveris, If you were to remember our sins,
Domine, quis sustinebit?Lord, who could stand?]

You ask my counsel day by day.
You say you delight in knowing my ways.
You say you come with joy into my presence.

But your fast leads to wrangling and strife;
is it a fast like this I require?
A day of sackcloth and ashes -
Is this what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast I require of you:
To loose the fetters of injustice,
Untie the knot of evry yoke,
To set free those who have been crushed?

Is it not sharing your food with the hungry,
Taking the homeless poor into your house,
Clothing the naked when you meet them
And not turning from your own flesh and blood?

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and you will grow healthy, like a wound newly healed.

If you do away with the with yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
If you feed the hungry from your own plenty
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

Then shall your light rise like dawn out of darkness,
and your night become like noonday!

Then, if you call, the Lord will answer,
if you cry to him, he will say, Here I am!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• sacred
• choral
• music
• brass

[coda826]

ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL