Unfortunately, God appointed a prophet named Jeremiah for the sole purpose of strangling these hopes. God told Jeremiah to spread the word that his people had become a bunch of libertine, idolatrous pigs and that unless they changed their ways, they were doomed.
While Jeremiah was preaching in Jerusalem, there was an interesting development at the temple. Cleaning out the basement, somebody found a dusty, old book. It happened to be the Book of Deuteronomy, which had mysteriously gone missing a few centuries earlier.
“Holy nuts, look at all these laws,” the priests said. “We haven’t been doing any of this shit!”
Jeremiah took the rediscovery of the Book of Deuteronomy as a good sign. “So that’s the rock in God’s shoe,” Jeremiah said. “We simply forgot a bunch of the laws. Once we start following the laws of Deuteronomy again, everything will be okay.”
To Jeremiah’s relief, the king reintroduced the laws of Deuteronomy with great fanfare, and a massive media campaign. Once people learned about the hundreds of new laws on the books, they wasted no time in ignoring them. Jeremiah was disgusted. He gave up on saving his people. Instead, he moped around, telling everyone to prepare themselves for the end. “We had our chance to save ourselves,” Jeremiah said. “We chose pork cutlets instead.”
Jeremiah would stand in the street and shout in graphic detail how the Kingdom of Judah would be obliterated by the Babylonians, how corpses would litter the fields like cowshit and how everyone they knew would soon be killed or enslaved. His sermons were not exactly crowd-pleasers.
Jeremiah hated being a prophet. He would have liked nothing more than to have been a well-adjusted, corn-fed patriot, like most of his countrymen. But he couldn’t help himself.
He suffered from a sort of divine Tourette’s syndrome. Somebody would run into a bar and announce that their wife had just given birth to a son. He’d try to smile and give them “Congratulations,” but his mouth would say, “You know that baby’s just going to die, don’t you? Just because they’re called Baby-lonians doesn’t mean they like babies. This time next year, that baby will probably be impaled on a pitchfork or burned in a bonfire. That’s why I’m not having any babies.”
People would be minding their own business in the market square, when out of the blue, Jeremiah would smash a clay jar and shout, “That’s what the Babylonians are going to do to us!”
He built a wooden yoke and wore it around town like an ox to symbolize the fact that they were all going to become pack animals for the mighty Babylonians.
Jeremiah would go to the temple and interrupt people’s prayers.
“Hey, what are you guys doing? Are you praying? Don’t bother. God isn’t fooled. Can a leopard change its spots? Can an Ethiopian turn white? You might be sorry today, but God knows that when tomorrow comes, you’ll go right back to worshiping snakes. Feel free to keep coming to the temple, though, there’s some great sandwich bars in the food court.”
When he saw a group of guys talking politics, he would butt in, saying, “The Babylonians are way too strong for us. If we try to fight them, we’re going to be devoured like goat cheese at a farmers’ market.”
Finally, when they’d had enough, the people threw Jeremiah down a well.
“That’s for not supporting the troops!” someone shouted down at him.
It wasn’t safe for Jeremiah to show his face in public anymore, so he began sending nasty letters via messenger. Sometimes, he’d have his messenger read his letters aloud to the king:
“God is going to destroy your kingdom. The Babylonians will enslave your children and use you for target practice. They’ll destroy the temple and help themselves to the holy treasure. They’ll leave you lying in the dirt, so the crows can peck out your eyes and dogs can gnaw at your feet,” the messenger read.
“Why do I keep letting that guy in here?” the king muttered to himself.
Jeremiah was the most hated man in Judah, but his unpopularity didn’t make him any less right. The Babylonians did invade the Kingdom of Judah. They did crush Judah’s armies and enslave its people. They destroyed the temple, set Jerusalem aflame and stole everything that wasn’t too heavy to haul away.
The Babylonians clapped Jeremiah in chains, along with thousands of his countrymen, and led them away toward Babylon. As they trundled down the road, the commander of the Babylonian army recognized Jeremiah.
“Hey, you’re Jeremiah, aren’t you? We heard about all the great things you said about us,” a Babylonian officer said. “You know, Babylon is not only a great empire, but a powerful force for good in the world. I wish more of you could see that…You know what? You should come to Babylon as our guest. We’ll put you up in style, let you have any house you want. Maybe we’ll even send you on a goodwill tour.”
“I didn’t shout in the streets about the destruction of my people because I love Babylon! I did it because they needed to hear it. If you really want to do me a favor, let me stay here,” Jeremiah said. “My people may hate me, but they’re still my people.”
The Babylonians shrugged, unshackled Jeremiah, and left him there among the ruins of his homeland.
Lamentations
After the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and hauled away thousands of his countrymen to live in captivity, Jeremiah became so depressed that he crawled into a nearby cave and started writing bad high school poetry.
Ode to a Failed Prophet (Gravel Face)
God has broken my bones
Withered me up like an old man
And mauled me like a bear
Just for laughs.
He broke my teeth with rocks
And made me drink various body fluids
Before trampling me in the dust.
My own people hunted me down
They threw me into a pit
And while I lay there dying
They wrote parody songs about me.
Not my best day.
Welcome to the Lair of Torment
I shall summon a demon
sayeth the Lord with glee
to devour their castles from below
and swallow soldiers as they flee
and all your beautiful people
will no longer enjoy their fame
perhaps this is because their faces
have been licked off by dragon flame!
and oh, how the children shall weep
when there is no wine to slake their thirst
widowed mothers will starve to death
…but they’ll eat their babies first!
and oh, how the fool shall dance as they die
and laugh as they bleed
needless to say, the Lair of Torment
is a pretty messed up place, indeed!
Requiem for a Prom Queen
The once-beautiful city now lies empty and alone
Like a queen
Like a widow
Like a slave
Her tiara is broken
Her dress is stained
Tears carve into her cheeks like canyons
And no one’s even there to ignore her
Her mom is out of town
Her boyfriend is gone
And her friends
Were never really her friends
If a heart breaks
And nobody’s around to hear it
Does it make a sound?
Jeremiah emerged from his cave to read his poetry to the people, at which point they kidnapped him and sent him to Egypt.
Ezekiel
God was waiting by the phone. He was getting desperate. He and the Jews had been broken up for a while now, and he was beginning to worry that they might never call. So God sent some prophets to scare the Jews into coming back to him.
Ezekiel was sitting in the desert one day when saw a large metallic wheel descend through the clouds. It was inhabited by strange, human-like creatures which had a different face on each side of their head. These creatures gave Ezekiel a scroll, but instead of read
ing it, they told him to eat it. Surprisingly, it didn’t taste all that bad.
After his encounter with the UFO, and the light snack which followed, Ezekiel began to hear the voice of God.
God’s voice boomed at Ezekiel, telling him to go to Jerusalem and warn the people that disaster was coming, that soon they would all be destroyed.
“They probably won’t listen to you,” God explained. “We were together for centuries, and let me tell you, they are terrible listeners. So we’re going to have to get a little funky to grab their attention. Okay, Ezekiel is it? Ezekiel, here’s what I want you to do: while you’re preaching to them, I want you to tie yourself up with ropes and lie on your left side for three hundred and ninety-days in a row. Then, turn over and lie on your right side for another forty days. One day to symbolize each year they’ve been living in sin.”
“Won’t I die?” Ezekiel asked.
“Good point. You’d better take a lunch. No, even better: take some flour, and then bake your own bread over a big, burning pile of human excrement. That will totally blow their minds.”
“I don’t think I want to do that,” Ezekiel protested.
“Okay, fine, bake it over some cow dung, then.”
“I’m still not entirely on board with this concept.”
“Listen Ezekiel, I really need you to get on board with this, otherwise, I’ve just got to wipe them all out without giving them a chance to repent. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”
“I suppose not.”
Ezekiel dutifully went to Jerusalem, and tied himself up in ropes. He lay on his side for over a year, all the while eating bread baked with cow shit.
Word spread throughout the land about Ezekiel and his unique brand of showmanship.
“He did what?” people would say. “That’s disgusting! Where’s he performing next week?”
For his next show, God told Ezekiel to stand in the middle of the town square and shave off all his hair with a sword.
“I want you to grab a handful of your hair and set it on fire. Then grab another handful and stab it with your sword. Finally, scoop up the rest of your hair and toss it into the wind.”
“What’s that supposed to accomplish?”
“It’s symbolism,” God explained. “Everyone loves symbolism. Trust me.”
Again, Ezekiel did as he was told. As he shaved his head with a sword, he told the people that without God’s protection, the city of Jerusalem would soon be besieged and destroyed.
“The dead will litter the streets and clog the rivers. Mothers will eat their children and children will eat their mothers. Many of you will die in the fire, or be put to the sword, and those who survive will be scattered to the winds to live like refugees.”
The crowd erupted into cheers. “Did you see what that nut did to his hair?”
“We’ll be scattered to the wind…just like that hair. Hey, I get it!” someone shouted. “We’re Ezekiel’s hair!”
“We’re Ezekiel’s hair! We’re Ezekiel’s hair!” the crowd chanted.
The curse of being a really great showman is that you’re never sure whether people come to hear what you have to say, or just to see what you’re going to do next. No matter what Ezekiel did to drive the point home to them, people seemed to just enjoy the show and then went right on worshiping idols, eating forbidden meats, and doing all the things that made God feel jealous and unloved.
Bald and frustrated, Ezekiel decided to give the theatrics a rest and focus on his message. He stood before a crowd and told them a parable about a man who had two slutty daughters. One of the daughters had a thing for Assyrian men. She would sleep with any guy who had an Assyrian accent. The other daughter liked Babylonian men, who were “hung like a donkey and cum like a horse.” Eventually when the father found out about his girls’ extra-curricular activities, he threw them out of the house and let anyone who wanted to have his way with them.
“That’ll teach them to be sluts!” the father said.
The father, of course, was a thinly veiled version of God, and the two horny daughters were Israel and Judah, the two Jewish kingdoms. But once again, the meaning was lost on an indifferent audience.
“Tell us more about the horse!” they shouted.
“I think I know what the problem is,” God said afterward.
“What’s that?” Ezekiel asked.
“There needs to be an emotional component to your stories,” God explained. “Something that will allow the listener to relate to you directly. I know just the trick! I’m going to kill your wife.”
“What?”
“Keep your turban on,” God said. “Just hear me out. When you’ve lost the person you love most in the world, then you can really drive the point home with them. Tell them that if I killed my own prophet’s wife, imagine what I would do to their loved ones. It lets them know I mean business!”
Somewhere in the distance, Ezekiel’s wife was tending her goats when she suddenly toppled over and died.
Ezekiel warned the people once again, telling them about his dead wife.
“My wife is dead,” he told them. “She had absolutely nothing to do with any of this, and yet,
God killed her just to get to me. And he likes me. So what do you think he’ll do to you, if you don’t change your ways?”
Once again, Ezekiel was ignored. God finally gave up on the idea that his people were ever going to come back to him. He was ready to move on. God withdrew his protection, letting the Babylonians storm into Jerusalem and kill everyone they could find. They razed the temple and set fire to the city.
Ezekiel was depressed. His wife was dead. His country lay in ruins. His people had been sent away into exile. God woke Ezekiel up amidst the rubble and destruction.
“What do you want now?” Ezekiel asked.
“One last thing, Ezekiel, I promise. You do this for me and you’re done.”
God led Ezekiel to a battlefield littered with bones and told him to bring the bones back to life.
“Bones! I command you to come back to life!”
“Well, you don’t have to be a dick about it!” God said, “Just ask them nicely.”
“Bones,” Ezekiel said, “please come back to life, if you would?”
“That’s better!”
The bones in the field slowly began to come together to form into skeletons. The skeletons stood up, drowsy from years of sleep. Tendons and muscles soon began to grow over the sun-parched white of the bones, and then they were in turn covered by skin and clothes and armor until Ezekiel saw a vast army standing in front of him.
“You see how easy that was?” God asked. “This is the fallen army of Israel. You’re upset with me because I killed your wife, let the Babylonians destroy your city, and reduced your people to slavery. I get that. But that’s small beer, son. You’re thinking like a man, not like a god. You see? Look at how easily I can put all that back together again.
“Don’t worry, this story isn’t over by a long shot. I’ll fix the nation of Israel. I’ll bring Jerusalem back to life, just like I did this army. I’ll even rebuild the temple. The only difference is that next time around, people will appreciate it more, because they’ll know what it’s like to be scattered, to be separated from their homes, their people, and their God.”
As they walked away, God told Ezekiel about his plans. “When we rebuild Jerusalem, I’m thinking we might go for a nice, symmetrical design. Long, straight streets. That’ll be a good look, don’t you think?”
“So we’ll just wait here, then?” asked one of the ghost soldiers, as God and Ezekiel disappeared into the distance.
Daniel
Running a global empire is a serious business. You need administrators, advisors, viceroys, and satraps. You can never have too many satraps. To ensure that they always had a large and competent executive class, the Babylonians designed a school specifically to train young men to rule the world. It was sort of lik
e Yale. Among those enrolled in the school were four promising Jewish boys named Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego.
Now, this school had the best cafeteria food in the history of higher education. Every morning, they put out a massive feast of roast pig, stuffed peacock, quail eggs, wine, and unlimited breadsticks. Despite all the amazing food, though, Daniel and his friends refused to eat there because they didn’t have a kosher menu. Instead, they ate raw carrots and salad in their dorm room, which they washed down with water.
The Babylonians weren’t entirely sold on the boys’ vegan diet, but they dropped the matter when they saw how chiseled, sexy, and smart they turned out to be.
In addition to being strong, good-looking, and brilliant, Daniel also developed a knack for interpreting dreams, which in the ancient world, really put you on the fast track to success.
King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream which really shook him up. He summoned all his advisers and magicians to interpret the dream, which normally wouldn’t have been a problem, except that he wouldn’t tell them what the dream was.
“This is the only way I can be sure your interpretation is coming from the gods,” he explained, “rather than just some pop psychology bullshit you picked up in college.”
When nobody could tell him what his dream was, Nebuchadnezzar threatened to have his entire council executed.
“But I’m a foreign policy expert!” one of them protested.
Luckily for the council, Daniel stepped in and revealed that Nebuchadnezzar had been dreaming about an enormous statue.
“Go on,” the king said.
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