Your wife shall be made a harlot in the city

The words of the Old Testament prophets, such as today's first reading (Amos 7:10-17), cane sometimes be more than a bit graphic and brutal

Your wife shall be made a harlot in the city,
and your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword;
Your land shall be divided by measuring line,
and you yourself shall die in an unclean land...

The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

There is a literal meaning to this prophecy: when we are not on a good path as individuals and families, bad things can result.

Of course, Scripture and experience also teach that bad things can happen to us even when we are good.

There are thus additional layers of meaning to this prophecy.

Male or female, married or unmarried, there are things in our lives that each of us hold intimately precious.

If these things are not of the Lord, we will lose them.

Young or old, parent or childless, there are things we have produced in our lives: things of which we are proud and which we hold dear.

If these things are not done in the Lord, we will lose them.

Every aspect of our lives, everything we have and everyone we love, must be always in the Lord.

Otherwise, sooner or later, we will lose.

None of us are perfect (I least of all), yet we must never despair, for the grace and power of the Lord to raise us out of our paralysis of sin is all powerful, as we hear in today's Gospel (Matthew 9:1-8):

"Why do you harbor evil thoughts?
Which is easier, to say,
'Your sins are forgiven,'
or to say, 'Rise and walk'?

But that you may know that the Son of Man
has authority on earth to forgive sins" -
he then said to the paralytic,
"Rise..."