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Oh boy, that's a dangerous question, I can definitely nerd out about the OT books! The best of course is the whole thing in context, but I feel there's a few passages to just consider meditating on.
1.at the end of Jeremiah's ministry he was put into a very awkward position being asked by the remaining Judeans whether or not to go down to…
Oh boy, that's a dangerous question, I can definitely nerd out about the OT books! The best of course is the whole thing in context, but I feel there's a few passages to just consider meditating on.
1.At the end of Jeremiah's ministry he was put into a very awkward position being asked by the remaining Judeans whether or not to go down to Egypt or stay in the Babylon occupied Judea. He told them to stay, they got pissed and kidnapped him to go to Egypt with them, and in Jeremiah 44 he gives his final warning to them and they give their final response.
2. The story of Naaman and Elisha in 2 Kings 5... I feel it relates a lot for your search for healing and Naaman's response to healing is worth pondering.
3. The first 3 or 4 chapters of Hosea tell one of the most provocative performance art requests (definitely not Christian radio friendly!)... God telling a prophet to marry a prostitute and then buying her back when she leaves him to go back to prostitution. It's one of the most tragic but beautiful allegories in the whole Bible God uses to paint a picture in very human terms what it feels like when he is "cheated on" but also of his relentless love to keep buying us back (chokes me up as someone trying to break a 2 generation curse of adultery and broken homes).
After that I always recommend my person fav of Micah as a nice TLDR version of prophetic books, as it nicely summarizes most of the themes of the major prophets but in only 7 chapters... I saw a bit of a narrative arch in it and it inspired me to make a whole rock opera based off it (which I have been posting a graphic novel version of the lyrics to on my Substack as "How to Cure Snake Oil"... of course it's more of a poetic and personified interpretation... like Hebrew Midrash... but it could be a nice companion to chew on the text in a different light.)
So yeah, like I said, I definitely get too nerdy, and musical on the subject (just trying to be Weird Al of prophetic books!) but I'll shut up now, haha! Peace to you on the road ahead :)
Thank you, I'll check those out. Have you read Abraham Joshua Heschel's book on the prophets? I really enjoyed it.
I heard about it... was recommended by Tim Mackie of The Bible Project and on my list to check out eventually.