The Burning Bush (燃燒的荊棘)

#2021-0527

The Burning Bush / 燃燒的荊棘

This morning when I saw these catching flowers (which are Bougainvillea, 九重葛屬; or more specifically, Great bougainvillea, 九重葛), I suddenly thought of the the Burning Bush described or recorded in Exodus 3:1-4:17.

Here is the beginning of the story:

One day while Moses was taking care of the sheep and goats of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, he led the flock across the desert and came to Sinai, the holy mountain. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a flame coming from the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was on fire but that it was not burning up. "This is strange," he thought. "Why isn't the bush burning up? I will go closer and see."

When the Lord saw that Moses was coming closer,  he called to him from the middle of the bush and said, "Moses! Moses!"

He answered, "Yes, here I am."

God said, "Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." So Moses covered his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said, "I have seen how cruelly my people are being treated in Egypt; I have heard them cry out to be rescued from their slave drivers. I know all about their sufferings, and so I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of Egypt to a spacious land, one which is rich and fertile and in which the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites now live. ..." (Exodus 3:1-8)

The story continues ... By the way, it's easy for me to cut and paste my favorite sections from the Bible to the Microsoft Word format, and then turn the Word document into PDF format; and finally by pushing the "Read Aloud" button of the PDF software, I can listen to the selected stories in addition to (or instead of) reading them aloud. I prefer to listen to the story of the burning bush; I find it more interesting to listen to the story (with my ears) than just to read it (with my eyes)!

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