Complacency Ends before the Spirit Makes Justice Fruitful

Women at ease are told to hear of a year without vintage

Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.

They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city: because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks. The address warns a secure class, including women of the court and city, that harvest and palaces will fail. It does not blame women for national disaster, and it does not authorize fear-based control of women's bodies, work, or security.

Until the Spirit is poured from on high, then justice, peace, and well-watered work

Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places; when it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low place. Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.

Spirit, field, justice, peace, security, and sowing by water arrive after the complacent years end. Quiet resting places are the fruit of righteousness, not a program of policing women into sackcloth.