True Inner Peace

Mon­day (6th week of Lent). Thus says the Lord: I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to prof­it, which leadeth thee by the way that thou should­est go. O that thou hadst heark­en­ed to my com­mand­ments! Then had thy peace been as a riv­er, and thy righ­teous­ness as the waves of the sea: Thy seed al­so had been as the sand, and the off­spring of thy bow­els like the grav­el there­of; his name should not have been cut off nor de­stroy­ed from be­fore me. Un­der what con­di­tion should all this come to pass? Go ye forth out of Bab­y­lon (Isa. 48:17–20). Bab­y­lon is an im­age of all-a­round sin­ful­ness. Aban­don sin, turn to the Lord with all of your heart. He will not re­mem­ber your trans­gres­sions, and will con­sign all of your un­righ­teous­ness to obliv­i­on. You will en­ter again in­to mer­cy with Him — and then you need on­ly to walk the way which He will teach you, and your in­ner peace will be like a riv­er, the good thoughts of your heart like the sand, and the fruits of your good works like the dust of the ground.[1]

[1] The Sla­von­ic for Isa. 48:19–20 reads: …and the off­spring of thy bow­els like the dust of the ground. The word­ing, dust of the ground, in the Sla­von­ic re­fers to Gen­e­sis 2:7.