What was the point of knowing it all?
What was the point of foreseeing the fall?

Why sermons?
Why warnings?
What prophetic cant?
Such ire?
Such anguish?
Such heartrending rant?

You gave me the words,
but you gave them no ears.
They quaffed their scoffing,
I ate my fears.

You drove me to drive them to turn and repent
When you knew that regardless you wouldn’t relent
So frankly I tell you how much I resent
The years I have wasted, the life I have spent
for nothing!

Who changes a changeless decree,
or a heart made of stone?
You?
But not me.
Yet I was the one who carried the word
that you knew all along would never be heard.

Let Jonah complain of his frivolous part
In changing the changeable Ninevite heart
While you scheduled mercy right from the start.
At least he did something!

But I, not a whit —
left to rot in a pit —
while they slander and spit —
This is it —
AND I QUIT!

(Words by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson. Painting by Rembrandt.)