Micah Quotes

The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.

He couldn’t stand to look at the truth, even now. All they were—all they had ever been—was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun.

Your life is a beer glass Micah, but you want champagne

It was a relief and a horror to be known so perfectly

I hope you looked west while I was looking east, and that for a moment you met my eyes without knowing it. I know you never look away, ever when your eyes are closed, but I'm never certain you can see what's really there. I miss you to pieces. Yours Always - J

Micah showed up shortly thereafter and was happy to meet our other “brother.” He shook Adrian’s hand and smiled. “Now I see some family resemblance. I was starting to wonder if Jill was adopted, but you two kind of look like each other.” “So does our mailman back in North Dakota,” said Adrian. “South,” I corrected. Fortunately, Micah didn’t seem to think there was anything weird about the slip. “Right,” said Adrian. He studied Micah thoughtfully. “There’s something familiar about you. Have we met?” Micah shook his head. “I’ve never been to South Dakota.” I was pretty sure I heard Adrian murmur, “That makes two of us.

I looked at Micah, who shrugged. I looked at Rafael, who shook his head. Nice that none of us knew why he was undressing.

It always makes me a little sad when you laugh," Julian went on. "The way it sort of takes you by surprise. I love it, it has that sweet sincerity that's the best part of you, but it still kills me how you never seem to expect it. All I want to do is make you happy, and you're the unhappiest person I've ever met.

Of course they would promise each other everything. Of course eternity would yield to them once they'd earned it.

All they were—all they had ever been—was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun.

But Micah purred, “I would like to take you to dinner, Bryce Quinlan.” She pulled out of his grip, joining Hunt in the elevator. And as the doors closed, she looked the Archangel of Valbara full in the face. “Not interested,” she said.

He remembered the way love had burned through him like a flame under glass, grasping outward, devouring what air it had left before it choked.

Why do you want to ask her out?" I asked. "I mean, she's great. But are you just doing this to distract her from Micah and give her a safe alternative? Or do you, um, like her?" "Of course he likes her," said Adrian, quick to defend Jill's honor. I had a feeling that there was really no good way for Lee to answer at this point. If he expressed interest in her, Adrian's bizarre chivalric instincts were going to kick in. If Lee wasn't interested, Adrian would no doubt demand to know why Lee didn't want to marry her then and there. It was one of those fascinating — but weird — quirks of Adrian's personality.

And the moment you care that much, a man has you. He owns a little piece of your soul, and he can beat you to death with it.

I kill them because they're beautiful, and it's the only way I can keep them.

He wanted to forget he'd ever yielded to the weakness of wanting anything. He wanted to scrub away any evidence that he existed outside his own head at all—that he was a visible object that anyone else could see and mock and judge.

Side by side they are twin angels on a headstone, cold and terrible and immutable. They were boys once, he remembers, but they aren't anymore.

What is required of thee, O man, but to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God. Micah 6:8

The opening move was circled in red.

What happens if I lose you again?" Paul didn't mean to ask it aloud, but he couldn't stop himself. "You don't." "How do I know that?" A sharp, inscrutable smile. "You don't.

Believe in the things I try to tell you instead of the things you think you deserve to be told. Keep writing. It doesn't matter what about. Please keep writing.

I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Micah said. “I’ve already stopped looking,” Damon said quietly. “It’s kind of hard to look for something you’ve stopped believing in.

Your boyfriend and Micah will both be speechless." I unfastened my seatbelt. "That's the third time I've heard 'your boyfriend.' What's going on about that? Why won't anyone say Brayden's name?" Neither of them answered right away. Finally, Jill said sheepishly, "Because none of us can remember it." "Oh, come on! I'd expect that from Adrian but not you guys. It's not that weird of a name." "No," admitted Eddie. "But there's just something so...I don't know. Unmemorable about him. I'm glad he makes you happy, but I just start to tune out whenever he talks.

If you paint a masterpiece and then set it on fire, it still would have mattered. If you know you’ve made something beautiful, who cares how long it lasts.

There’s this idea in psychoanalysis that I’ve always liked.” Julian pulled himself closer and rested his head in the crook of Paul’s arm. “It’s that what we call ‘love’ is actually letting your identity fill in around the shape of the other person—you love someone by defining yourself against them. It says loss hurts because there’s nothing holding that part of you in place anymore. But your outline still holds, and it keeps holding. The thing you shaped yourself into by loving them, you never stop being that. The marks are permanent, so the idea of the person you loved is permanent, too.

I always think of a passage from the Symposium, this allegory about people who started off as two halves of a whole, but then something cut them apart, and they spend their whole lives looking for their other half so they can fit themselves back together. And that's how it feels, it hurts, it's like I lost you before I was born.

Love? Love is like holding water in your hands. You might have it for a time, but it escapes, leaving you with nothing.

They wanted each other in the way of flesh wanting to knit itself together over a wound.

The anticipation is an essential part of this whole trip. The excitement of going, the places we'll see, the people we'll meet, that's part of the joy of this whole thing...Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life...without excitement you have nothing, you're cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what's coming.

I go to school here, same as you,' Han said. Micah blinked at him stupidly, the drink slowing him down. 'You? Do you even know how to read and write? They can't have lowered the standards that much.' 'Well,' Han said, 'they let you in.

Bryce said smoothly to Micah, "I have no idea where the Horn is." His smile didn't waver. "Try again." "I have no idea where the Horn is, Governor?

There's too much to learn in a lifetime.

He squeezed my shoulder and smiled at me. I realized that I hadn't kissed him hello, I always kissed him hello. Of course, I was still covered in blood and other bodily fluids, and none of them were his, but he might not understand that that was why I hadn't wanted to get too close. Some of my confusion must have shown on my face, because his smile widened. He turned me around by the shoulders, gave me a little push towards the bathroom, and slapped me on the ass. "Get cleaned up, I'll take care of things here." "I can't believe that you just did that," I said. "Did what?" he said, and he was grinning at me. I could probably count on one hand the number of times Micah had grinned at me. His eyes were sparkling with laughter as if it were all he could do not to let it out. I was happy to see him having a good time, really I was. But I wasn't sure what was funny, and I didn't have the courage to ask. It was probably something that would be at my expense, or something I'd just done that he found cute. I was not cute. Confused, fucked-up, bruised, but not cute. Nathaniel and Damian knew better, but as I passed Gregory, I had to say, "If you touch my ass, I will rip you a new one." I said it as I moved past him, not even pausing. "You're no fun," he growled. I looked back just before I turned out of sight of him. "Oh, I'm a lot of fun, just not around you." He snarled at me. "Bitch." "Woof, woof," I said, and finally made it into the bathroom.

They could only stitch themselves back together if they did something irreversible.

...Paul realized he had been wrong all along to imagine his family wanted him to metamorphose into something softer and kinder and more docile. It was much simpler than that. All they actually wanted him to do was lie.

But when they were alone, he could promise himself that he and Julian were each other's birthright, and that the only unnatural thing was the fact that their blood was divided between two bodies. He could believe that even calling it "sex" was incorrect, because it wasn't about anything so shallow as physical desire. They wanted each other in the way of flesh wanting to knit itself together over a wound.

The circus collects the outsiders like a flame tempts moths.

Tell me something Micah, If you found a naked woman tied to your bed what would you think? That I have been a very good boy in a pass life.

She couldn't turn away from the eyes that held her. Eyes as deep, as Dark as the night, yet there was something that sparked with warmth, that kept those eyes from being cold.

If I have to deal with one more person today, I'll fucking kill myself." Paul almost snapped at him, but he didn't want to explain why the threat made him feel sick. Instead he said, very quietly, "I can leave." "Don't be dumb," said Julian, "you don't count.

The Lightbender: Micah, what do you think magic is? Micah: I guess it's what's inside of people like you. The parts of you that are too big to keep just to yourself.

As I pulled the covers up and let Micah settle in next to me, I heard Mom’s voice in my ears: Children need to get used to being in the dark. She’d repeated that countless times throughout my childhood. No, I thought, they don’t.

He endured it to punish himself, and to prove to himself that he could; those were the only two reasons he ever chose to do anything worthwhile.

Take her to the kitchen,” came the order. “If she lies, throw her in the cauldron." “He was jesting about the cauldron, wasn’t he? You cannot have a cauldron big enough for a person?” Bard halted, sighed, looked at her with those wide, liquid eyes.“We,” he said, “have knives.

The circus had been unlike anything I could ever imagine and I could not walk away. I wanted to be a part of the magic, create it and wield it with such skill that it looked effortless. I wanted to fly.

Jill had three basic statements about life, 1. It is your life, usually with some added social commentary. 2. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things. 3. No one ever said that life was fair.

If you die, Lily ... I’ll steal your soul and take you to the Abyss, where I will keep you in my magical dungeon so you can never escape.

Your name is written on my heart, Lily

Nugget?" said Micah, offering a lump to Toby. "Thanks," said Toby. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. "I think maybe it is a squirrel." He said.

... because he was going to marry her. “It is customary to ask,” she now said as she turned to watch him button up a black shirt over that chest she’d licked and sucked and kissed not long ago. “Why?” He shrugged. “I’m not giving you a choice.

—and I had to see you like that,” said Julian, “this poor beautiful boy who can be so sweet and gentle when he can bring himself to trust me, who wants to save the world because he feels all the ways it hurts, he feels

I didn't want to pick at Micah and me until we unraveled. I wanted to leave it alone and enjoy it. I just didn't know how to do that.

Even the receptionist was new, a pretty, young, buxom blonde named Eden, according to her nameplate. Micah must have handpicked her from the Garden.

Where are you guys getting all of this?" I asked. "What does it matter if I - oh come on." We'd reached the lobby and found Eddie and Micah sitting on a bench together. They at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "Not you guys too," I said. "I was just here to see Jill," said Micah unconvincingly. "And I was here to, um..." Eddie faltered, and I held up a hand to stop him.

The other ones don’t want to play with me.” There were more of him? Dear God... The doctor turned, smiling at the boy. “Is it because you’re not sharing your toys?” Kat choked on what sounded like a near-hysterical laugh. Micah’s eyes slid to the doctor. “Sharing is not how you assert dominance.” What. The. Holy. Hell.

They say love and hate are closely tied, that they can turn at a moment’s notice.

I don’t think you’ve ever felt anything that didn’t hurt you,” Julian said. “We’ve found each other, out of everyone else in the world. Does that hurt, too?

Penny sets down her book. “You don’t want to know why your girlfriend was snogging your sworn enemy?” “I don’t know about ‘sworn,’ ” I say. “I’ve never taken an oath.” “I’m pretty sure Baz has.” “Anyway, they weren’t snogging.” Penny shakes her head. “If I caught Micah holding hands with Baz, I’d want an explanation.” “So would I.” “Simon.

I love you Micah. You may not want it. You may not need it. But you'll always have it. It doesn't come with any strings or expectations. It's given freely.

Take some more advice from Dr. Micah. Don’t give women too much time to think. It never ends up good for either of you.

Is it ghosts that truly haunt us, or the memory of our own mistakes that we wish we could undo?

Two centuries of slavery that was barely disguised as some sort of twisted path to redemption. Micah’s bargain with him, reduced or no, was a disgrace.

Chemistry was such a strange thing. I'd be willing to bet even Micah couldn't tell me why hundreds of men could leave me cold, while this one could string me along forever with only a smile.

Weird—no one is this popular, There wasn't a single negative comment, which made Micah even more suspicious. Some sort of parishioner conspiracy of silence? Could the church organize everyone's silence on a grand scale? Can all church members be this loyal? Were they paid off?

You figure out on your own what’s good and what isn’t, and maybe that idea ends up being rigid, but that’s better than not having anything at all.

Their fathers make their fortunes pouring poison into the sky. What's a little one-on-one torture when you know the world is yours to ruin?

Grief was normal enough that it felt almost safe, and Paul could imagine enduring it forever. He might be able to suspend the two of them together in amber, so long as his unhappiness remained the same.

Have dinner with me tonight. I can fill you in on my conversation with Micah.” “And if I say no?” She wouldn’t have. “Then, I’ll keep my discussions with Micah to myself.” “Zack, that’s bribery.” “Sue me.

In the end, there wasn’t any difference between trusting someone and underestimating them.

Promise me, man. If anything ever happens to me, promise me you'll take care of Angelina. She's something special, Micah. Heart way too big for her own good. I worry because she doesn't see everyone for who they are. She's too busy looking for the good. I've tried to get her to adopt some cynicism, but the truth of the matter is, she wouldn't be the same girl if she did.

Micah lives like an apology. He blushes when he breathes because he's taking someone else's air. It's like all Micah wants is to disappear, and he thinks if he's quiet enough, if he keeps his eyes on the ground and barely breathes and treads lightly, people will forget he exists.

No. But then the American Government--whatever branch--has never really grasped the concept of tribal identity.

I’d rather go and make my own way than have it decided for me.

It’s more than looks,” said Eddie, growing pensive. “It’s the way they act too. Micah’s the same—outgoing, optimistic, excited. That’s how Mason was. There are too few people like that in the world: people who are genuinely good. Mason was taken away from the world too soon. I won’t let that happen to Micah." Eddie

Not sure how you can get them to him without looking like a crazy stalker chick," Micah says. "You think I'm a crazy stalker chick?" "You're using an ancient war manual to try to win back your boyfriend. I think you're a girl who will do whatever it takes to get what she wants," he says. "Hey, at least you're committed.

The historical problems with Luke are even more pronounced. For one thing, we have relatively good records for the reign of Caesar Augustus, and there is no mention anywhere in any of them of an empire-wide census for which everyone had to register by returning to their ancestral home. And how could such a thing even be imagined? Joesph returns to Bethlehem because his ancestor David was born there. But David lived a thousand years before Joseph. Are we to imagine that everyone in the Roman Empire was required to return to the homes of their ancestors from a thousand years earlier? If we had a new worldwide census today and each of us had to return to the towns of our ancestors a thousand years back—where would you go? Can you imagine the total disruption of human life that this kind of universal exodus would require? And can you imagine that such a project would never be mentioned in any of the newspapers? There is not a single reference to any such census in any ancient source, apart from Luke. Why then does Luke say there was such a census? The answer may seem obvious to you. He wanted Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, even though he knew he came from Nazareth ... there is a prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah that a savior would come from Bethlehem. What were these Gospel writer to do with the fact that it was widely known that Jesus came from Nazareth? They had to come up with a narrative that explained how he came from Nazareth, in Galilee, a little one-horse town that no one had ever heard of, but was born in Bethlehem, the home of King David, royal ancestor of the Messiah.

Young girls live in mythology.Their music, their moves, their relationships. Heartbreak makes them feel grown-up. Nothing a young girl wants more than to feel grown-up, and she'll lay waste to anyone for the taste of a broken heart.

Micah: “Come, on. Let’s get you out of here.” He began putting his arms under me and lifted me off my bed of rocks. “Oh, no. You can’t just come trotting in here like some hero. I’m saving myself this time. Go away!” “And let me just say you were doing a fine job lying there on your back.

All life is bound to a simple truth... that time goes on, that in each person's life begins a tale, a tale that will either end in memory or in legend.

Threat is such an unattractive word. Think of it as inspired relationship building." Gabrielle "Gabby" Lin

The first measure of any civilization is how it deals with its trash.

And then they act like you're crazy when do you speak up, just to drive the point home that being shy is safer?

i tthink too many people use the word love when they don’t mean it. They enjoy a relationship with someone, but the first bump or two in their path and they realize it wasn’t real love—and they move on. Micah is my forever love. Could our relationship end? We’re human and full of flaws, so sure it could. Would it hurt me the rest of my life? Absolutely. He is the only one for me. At the risk of sounding cliché, he’s my soul mate.

You know what I regret the most?” Trinity says, her voice just above a whisper. I don’t answer. All I can think about is how crappy it is that my fourteen-year-old sister already has regrets.

All along it had been Paul who was meant to plead for mercy. The real violence was in how gentle Julian was—how near his reassurances came to absolution while stopping just short of granting it.

You get to me all of the time. Always have. In all the good ways.

at Parthos that a doomed human army made its final stand against the Vanir? To save proof of what they were before the Rifts opened—to save the books. A hundred thousand humans marched that day knowing they would die, and lose the war.” Micah’s smile grew. “All to buy the priestesses time to grab the most vital volumes. They loaded them onto ships and vanished.

He stepped forward and took the butterfly hanging around my neck between his two fingers: “This will remind me, both of my mistake and how much I care for you.” He took another step closer so we were only inches apart, and his hand moved to the back of my shoulder where Shawn’s mark still scarred my skin. “And I hope this will never heal. It will remind me to never take anything for granted; other people’s intentions, your safety, or . . . you.

Someone was shaking her to wake up. Charlotte swatted at the hand in the hope the owner would leave her alone. “Come on, baby, rise and shine. Time to get ready.” She moaned and turned away, grunting for whoever it was to leave her alone. “I need to sleep,” she called. “Shall I strip naked and join you in bed?” Charlotte jerked upright. Micah stood with his hands by his side and an arrogant smile on his face. “Is the invitation still open?” “It was never open,” she replied.

Micah knew the power of a look. When two people touched from across a distance, that touch could be frightening, wary, or a stroke of gentleness. He stroked her gently. He never let his eyes dip below her chin; rather, he let himself take in every nuance of expression, every shift of each facial motion, the flicker of her lashes, the shadows in her eyes, the tension in her small body. She was like a bird ready to fly. Poised at the edge of her seat, her body stiff and prepared to run.

He wanted to tear through Julian’s skin and map the shapes of liver and lungs, to memorize the path of every artery with his fingertips. He wanted to break Julian’s body open and move inside it alongside him, rib cages interlaced around a single heart.

Julian pulled himself closer and rested his head in the crook of Paul's arm. "It's that what we call 'love' is actually letting your identify fill in around the shape of the other person - you love someone by defining yourself against them. It says loss hurts because there's nothing holding that part of you in place anymore. But your outline still holds, and it keeps holding. The thing you shaped yourself into by loving them, you never stop being that. The marks are permanent, so the idea of the person you loved is permanent, too". Only as permanent as I am, Paul wanted to say.

Arms wrapped around him, she kissed him, halting the flow of his words. He decided he would allow the kiss, but since he couldn’t make her naked here, he had to stop it. “Why did you change your face, Lily?” Liliana lifted her hands to her face at that quizzical question, terrified her father had cast a final vengeful spell. “Is it very bad?” she whispered to the man who held her in arms of steel. “I suppose I’ll get used to it,” he muttered, then kissed her again using his tongue and squeezing her bottom—as if his brothers and sister, and other people, weren’t standing right there. An instant later, she decided she didn’t care.

The most prevailing concern of These Violent Delights, of course, is the kind of toxic and identity-consuming romantic friendship that many queer people experience in their teens. While obsessive love is clearly not bound by gender or orientation, there is, I think, a dialectic of both wanting and wanting to be that is specific to same-gender relationships of this kind. My own experiences of these relationships felt like another latent threat I carried inside me, one that fed off my alienation from the outside world by affirming it.

It was as if he'd suddenly become intimately aware of the fragility of life and how precious time really was. As a result, he made a conscious effort to simplify his life, with the goal of eliminating unnecessary stress. No longer interested in society's definition of success, he began purging his life of material things. Life, he decided, was for living, not for having, and he wanted to experience every moment that he could. At the deepest level, he'd come to understand that life could end at any moment, and it was better to be be happy than busy.

I hate babies with trendy names like Tiffany and Britney and Heather and Noah and Blake and Justin. I’m sick of Olivia and Chloe and Eva and Madison. I hope Aiden and Jayden and Braden and Graden all suffer minor head injuries while reading Dr. Seuss. Enough already with the cutesy-poo baby names. What happened to John and Dave and Sue? Babies with trendy names grow up to be adults with ridiculous names. “This is our CEO, Micah.” “You know what, Micah? I want my money back. I’m closing my portfolio. I’m going with Michael. He’s a grown-up.” One day all of these trendy-named children will grow up and become parents and then grandparents, and it’s all wrong. Grandma Tori? Zayda Jared? Nana Savannah?

She looked around the room, glanced over him and Micah waited. Her Gaze passed him, then again. On the third pass she lingered as she continued to watch her, allowing his gaze to memorize those features just before her eyes met his. A jolt od power flashed through him. Her ligth blue eyes flickered with interest, fear, then interest again, as though she wasn't certain which she should feel. He let his gaze continue to hers, let his mind reach out to her, soothe her, ease her. He used his eyes rather than his expression to calm the fear that he knew he would be rising within her. Micah knew the power of a look. When two people touched from across a distance, that touch could be frightening, wary, or a stroke of gentleness. He stroked her gently. He never let his eyes dip below her chin; rather, he let himself take in every nuance of expression, every shift of each facial motion, the flicker of her lashes, the shadows in her eyes, the tension in her small body. She was like a little bird ready to fly. Poised at the edge of her seat.her body stiff and prepared to run. Easy, little bird, he thought, letting his thoughts touch his gaze. There is no pain here; there is no fear.

So . . . ,” she says, following him to the chalkboard. “You got a Visiting. An actual Visiting—Natasha Grimm-Pitch was here.” Baz glances back over his shoulder. “You sound impressed, Bunce.” “I am,” Penelope says. “Your mother was a hero. She developed a spell for gnomeatic fever. And she was the youngest headmaster in Watford history.” Baz is looking at Penny like they’ve never met. “And,” Penny goes on, “she defended your father in three duels before he accepted her proposal.” “That sounds barbaric,” I say. “It was traditional,” Baz says. “It was brilliant,” Penny says. “I’ve read the minutes.” “Where?” Baz asks her. “We have them in our library at home,” she says. “My dad loves marriage rites. Any sort of family magic, actually. He and my mother are bound together in five dimensions.” “That’s lovely,” Baz says, and I’m terrified because I think he means it. “I’m going to make time stop when I propose to Micah,” she says. “The little American? With the thick glasses?” “Not so little anymore.” “Interesting.” Baz rubs his chin. “My mother hung the moon.” “She was a legend,” Penelope beams. “I thought your parents hated the Pitches,” I say. They both look at me like I’ve just stuck my hand in the soup bowl. “That’s politics,” Penelope says. “We’re talking about magic.” “Obviously,” I say. “What was I thinking.” “Obviously,” Baz says. “You weren’t.” “What’s happening right now?” I say. “What are we even doing?” Penelope folds her arms and squints at the chalkboard. “We,” she declares, “are finding out who killed Natasha Grimm-Pitch.” “The legend,” Baz says. Penelope gives him a soft look, the kind she usually saves for me. “So she can rest in peace.

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. -Benjamin Franklin Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. -James Baldwin She wore an expression I've only seen in paintings in museums, of a love and a grief so fierce that they forged together to create some new, raw emotion. There are two types of people who become public defenders: those who believe they can save the world, and those who know damn well they can. Any public defender who tells you justice is blind is telling you a big fat lie. If no one ever talks about race in court, how is anything ever supposed to change? It is amazing how you can look in a mirror your whole life & think you are seeing yourself clearly. Then one day, you peel off a filmy gray layer of hypocrisy, & you realize you've never truly seen yourself at all. My client hates me. She thinks I'm a racist. Micah: She has a point. You're white and she's not, and you both happen to live in a world where white people have all the power. It is a strange thing being suddenly motherless. It's like losing a rudder that was keeping me on course, one that I never paid much mind to before now. Who will teach me how to parent, how to deal with the unkindness of strangers, how to be humble? You already did, I realize. She looks at me, and we laugh....we have more in common than we have differences. Everyone has prejudices. It's my job to make sure that they work in favor of the person I'm representing. The Millennials are the me generation. They usually think everything revolves around them, and make decisions based on what's going on in their lives & how it will affect their lives. They're minfields of egocentrism.

Throughout the biblical story, from Genesis to Revelation, every radical challenge from the biblical God is both asserted and then subverted by its receiving communities— be they earliest Israelites or latest Christians. That pattern of assertion-and-subversion, that rhythm of expansion-and-contraction, is like the systole-and-diastole cycle of the human heart. In other words, the heartbeat of the Christian Bible is a recurrent cardiac cycle in which the asserted radicality of God’s nonviolent distributive justice is subverted by the normalcy of civilization’s violent retributive justice. And, of course, the most profound annulment is that both assertion and subversion are attributed to the same God or the same Christ. Think of this example. In the Bible, prophets are those who speak for God. On one hand, the prophets Isaiah and Micah agree on this as God’s vision: “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, / and their spears into pruning hooks; / nation shall not lift up sword against nation, / neither shall they learn war any more” (Isa. 2:4 = Mic. 4:3). On the other hand, the prophet Joel suggests the opposite vision: “Beat your plowshares into swords, / and your pruning hooks into spears; / let the weakling say, ‘I am a warrior’” (3:10). Is this simply an example of assertion-and-subversion between prophets, or between God’s radicality and civilization’s normalcy? That proposal might also answer how, as noted in Chapter 1, Jesus the Christ of the Sermon on the Mount preferred loving enemies and praying for persecutors while Jesus the Christ of the book of Revelation preferred killing enemies and slaughtering persecutors. It is not that Jesus the Christ changed his mind, but that in standard biblical assertion-and-subversion strategy, Christianity changed its Jesus.