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The toe bon'e sconnectoed to thefoot bone.The foot bone's connected to theheel boneIn one of the most famous passages from the Old Testament, the prophet Ezekiel sees a valley strewn with dry bones. Bones which, thanks to the Spirit of God, reform to become a living breathing army.The Valley of the Dry Bones is one of the Bible's absolute gems.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

The day before a messenger arrives in Babylon with news that the mighty city of God, Jerusalem has fallen, Ezekiel tells the exiled Jews that it will fall.As if this weren't amazing enough, he shares the astonishing news that the exiles will eventually be repatriated, and that they will flourish in a rebuilt Israel.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

These chapters of Ezekiel are some of the least read - and least quoted - in the Bible.One by one, the prophet takes nations and city states surrounding the kingdom of Judah and describes what calamities will befall them and why.It's hard to make a neat segue to the New Testament from these, but this poses no problem for the Wholly Buyable podcast. Deep theology is not our job; we simply narrate in contemporary language, and bring these ancient pages to a new and hopefully appreciative audience.Enjoy!Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

Judah's people me be about to meet with catastrophe, but neighbouring nations will also be on the receiving end of a kicking, they are told.Ammon, Edom and Tyre all receive dire storm warnings from the prophet Ezekiel.Though none of these nations attacked Judah's Jews, their celebration of its defeat by Babylon and their opportunistic ransacking of the stricken nation has not gone down well with God.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

This is one of the most remarkable set of chapters in the entire Bible. And that's a Bible that includes the creation of the earth, a boat filled with animals, a man swallowed by a giant fish and a man who comes back to life after being executed.In one eye-popping passage, the cities of Samaria and Jerusalem are likened to a couple of nymphomaniacs, and in another, Ezekiel's wife is killed as a lesson to the rest of Judah.It's a must-listen episode, but sadly, one for adults only.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

“A ruin! A ruin! I will make it a ruin!” Ezekiel shouts at Israel's Jews.These, he says, are God's words, not his own, adding:"I will gather you in my anger and my wrath and put you inside the city and melt you."It's fair to say that God is not especially pleased with the people who are contractually obliged to worship him in exchange for their own eternal wellbeing.Their worship of pagan gods has not gone down well with capital G God, and with thousands of Jews already in exile in Babylon - and Jerusalem about to fall - the good times are  most definitely over.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

More florid description pours fom the pen of the prophet Ezekiel.Vines, lions and the perfect man all take centre stage in an episode where, through Ezekiel, God hammers home the truth that everyone is responsible for their own spiritual wellbeing, andno one gets a free pass because of who they are or where they were born.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

Surprisingly for an episode entitled 'The Nymphomaniac', this really is about a nymphomaniac. or a metaphorical one at least.God is so angry at his people's rebellion against him that he orders his prophet to explain in colourful language their relationship to him, and how they have behaved.It's lurid to say the least.This episode contains explicit sexual reference, as well as reference to infant deathWritten and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

In a vision that will have shocked those who first heard it, Ezekiel sees God leaving the Holy of Holies. This is the sacred room in the Jerusalem temple which is believed to have been God's earthly HQ since Solomon completed the building 400 years earlier.It is a show of God's utter rejection of his people, and is designed to terrify them back into worshipping him.The trouble is, those Jews left in Jerusalem and who weren't taken captive by Babylon's armies believe they are the virtuous ones and that God protected them because he favours them.The opposite is true, and it appears that God has now abandoned them.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: Wholly Buyable Podcast

If Jerusalem's elders weren't fully aware of what awaits their city, their nation and thei people as a result of turning away from God and worshiping pagan idols, they are now.In a dramatic vision, the prophet Ezekiel is teleported from exile in Babylon back to Jerusalem where he witnesses first hand the city's corruption, and the impending carnage about to land on it.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

Ezekiel's vision at the beginning of his book is so other-worldly that he barely has words to describe it.What follows is a dramatic life change for a man who has already been wrenched from the comfort of priestly life at the Jerusalem temple and into exile in Babylon.Among other things, the prophet is ordered to eat a scroll, lie on one side for over a year, and cook on a fire fuelled by his own excrement.It's a lively and dramatic start to one of the Bible's most vivid and powerful books.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

Trigger Warning: Contains reference to infant deathThe Bible's darkest book just got darker.The fourth chapter of the Book of Lamentations makes for some harrowing reading as the writer is caught up in the wretched, slow death of a city under siege.With the horror of his situation all around him, he composes without doubt the bleakest chapter in the entire Bible. Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

Trigger warning: This episode includes accounts of infant death In 597 BC, the city of Babylon was besieged.Eleven years later, Nebuchadnezzar II's army returned and laid siege to it once again.The privations of living through these sieges are hard to imagine, but readers don't need to use their imagination.They have the poet or poets who lived through these terrible years and saw the horror with their own eyes.If Jeremiah's book ended bleakly, Lamentations takes that desolation another level down.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

With an ending shrouded in mystery, the finale of Jeremiah's book asks more than it answers.What is certain - at least from the prophet's perspective - is that the Babylonian Empire is going to crash and burn.God may have used Babylon as a useful agent to annihilate Judah, and his people may have needed to learn the heard way that they must not worship other deities, but destroying God's people and desecrating his temple comes at a price. Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

To his audience, the prophet Jeremiah's words must seem beyond belief.The city of Jerusalem has been battered and besieged, its king has no real authority to rule, and its greatest and best people have been hauled away to exile in Babylon.Yet Jeremiah promises that the mighty, all-conquering Babylonian Empire which dominates the Near East from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean and south to the Egyptian border will one day be reduced to rubble and dust.Even more unbelievably, less than seventy years later, Jeremiah's words come true.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

After more than forty chapters where it is Judah who is in God's crosshairs, it's refreshing to see that a few other Near Eastern Nations will also be on the receiving end of a kicking.None of these countries exist any more, which is telling, and the language used by the prophet to describe their downfall is dramatic.They won't be crowing at Judah's downfall for long, Jeremiah promises, they'll be too busy fleeing the ruins of their own shattered countries Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

After most of Judah's Jews have been exiled to Babylon, the few who remain have rebelled, opting to settle in Egypt rather than follow their compatriots east.According to God, this is a terrible life choice, and he spells out what will happen to these renegades, and why.Surprisingly, it isn't just Judah who receives a kicking from God. He's about to call time on all neighbouring countries, none of which will survive the Babylonian onslaught.

Finally! Some action.Jeremiah reports from the front line of the siege as Judah's renegade king bolts for freedom.Reprisals follow, some especially grisly, but the drama doesn't end there.Where there is a ball to be dropped, Judah appears to have any number of clowns to drop it, even after the nation has fallen to Babylon.You can almost see Jeremiah clutching his head in despair, and its no wonder they call him the weeping prophet.In Judah, there is plenty to weep about.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

In a ceasefire, Jeremiah heads off to claim the field he has recently bought - and is arrested on suspicion of deserting to the Babylonians.His love-hate relationship with Judah's reckless puppet king, Zedekiah continues, with home for the prophet now being a jail cell.Worse still, the book which he and his scribe Baruch have so painstakingly put together has fallen into enemy hands.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

The last thing most people would do as an enemy invades their land is buy property.And given that no defeated nation ever gets its land back, this appears to be throwing money away.Or in other words, madness.Often when there is madness in the Bible, there is method.Better still, everyone learns a little bit about 6th century BC real estate deals.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

No captured city in the Ancient Near East has ever been repopulated by its own people.This kind of thing simply does not happen, and so to promise it appears to be madness.Jeremiah is not only confident that God is planning to do this, he looks ahead to a time when his people will have a new king, a man who seems not a million miles away from Jesus Christ. As far as Bible pages go, these are big ones.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

The last thing a prisoner in the ancient Near East is expected to do is buy land.Especially when that land is currently being trampled by enemy armies.Who might kill him.Jeremiah's book is all about theatre, especially if that theatre can provide a teachable moment.And so papyrus, ink, scales for weighing silver, sealing wax and witnesses are brought to the prophet's cell. 

An apocalyptic storm “from the ends of the earth” is coming, one that will see Near Eastern nations toppling like dominos.Everywhere, the corpses of God’s enemies will lie unburied and unmourned, littering the ground like dung. Expect another lively episode from the Bible's most down-at-mouth prophet as Jeremiah continues to rage at a people who don't want to hear.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

O land, land land!It's a pitiful lament from the prophet Jeremiah as he attempts to rescue the nation he loves.No one in power or authority appears to see the danger of worshipping pagan gods in a country which, the Bible tells its readers, was founded by God.Turning away from him is seen as an act of rebellion, and rebels must be punished.The question is, will Judah's kings listen? And if the ship can still be saved, who will do it, and how?Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyableThe Bible of The Handmaid’s Tale: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1998685/episodes/17329096

The human cost of being God's mesenger is spelled out in graphic detail in this episode.Jeremiah feels gerrymandered into being a prophet, and even wishes that the man who brought his father the supposedly joyful news of his birth had been murdered.Despite this, he continues haranguing Judah's great and good, even taking them on a field trip to a rubbish tip.Speaking out against Judah's love affair with pagan gods is a tough job, but someone has to do it, even if it does mean ridicule and social embarrassment.Fortunately for the Bible - and literature - Jeremiah steps up.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

What a mess.Judah's people are being assured by their prophets - holy men who should know better - that all will be well. Business as usual will win the day, they say, even if that business is worshipping pagan deities rather than capital G God.Jeremiah warns these bogus seers that they will die in the disasters which they have promised their people will never happen.Unsurprisingly, he is in for a tough ride, but in taking one for the team, Jeremiah is able to write a fabulous account of life in end-of-an-era Judah - and teh woes of being a prophet.I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

The warnings to Judah's people continue.Rogue shepherds will trample its vineyards, turning pleasant pasture into parched and desolate wasteland because there is no one left to care about it or take care for it.These shepherds are Babylon's armies which arrive decades after Jeremiah is writing. There is still time to turn the ship around, but no one appears to be listening. If they are, they don't take Jeremiah seriously. He is a ranting holy man, and they have plenty of sane prophets telling them what they want to hear.For this, Jeremiah promises that they will be left like people so drunk on wine that men women and children will smash into one another - with disastrous consequences.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

The slow tour through the Bible's longest book (by word count) continues.Standing at the entrance to Jerusalem's temple, Jeremiah accuses the nation's Jews of simply paying lip service to worshipping God.These people are so convinced that their Jewishness alone will rescue them that they are happy hedging their bets by worshipping lots of other gods.God however, is a fan of exclusivity, and the price for Judah's people not giving him their undivided adoration is a costly one. Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyableThe Bible of the Handmaid's Tale: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1998685/episodes/17329096

There's no telling some people.Judah's Jews assume that they have a free pass when it comes to enjoying the good life.Simply because of an accident of birth and their ethnicity, they feel that God will turn a blind eye to the fact that they have wholeheartedly abandoned him, choosing instead to immerse themselves in pagan religion.Jeremiah has news for these people, and as the title of this podcast suggests, it's not especially good...Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Micael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

It's not easy being an Old Testament prophet.Jeremiah describes the feeling of being stabbed in the heart and writhing in pain.His compatriots seem not only content to turn their backs on God - the 'Big I Am' believed to have set the universe in motion - they are hedging their bets with every other deity then can grab hold of.The prophet describes his people as lusty stallions and adulterous men fired up over other men's wives.It's lurid, but Jeremiah doesn't baulk at telling it how he sees it.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffSend comments and feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

A sex worker waiting by the road for hook-ups A young camel so on heat she doesn't even need chasing.Such is the out of control idolatry of the nation of Judah.Yet one holy man can see the writing on the wall and is is tasked with warning his people before it's too late and God calls time on their nation.That man is Jeremiah.Join us as Season 20 begins.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffSend comments and feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

The doom and gloom continues - this is a book by an Old Testament prophet after all - but there is also light at the end of the tunnel.Israel will rebound and its people will drink deeply "from her satisfying breasts."The prophet foresees a future where people are not only forgiven by God, he forgets the things they did wrong.Better still, he is planning an entirely new heaven and a new earth where people who have never previously been a part of his cosmic plan are welcomed in.As season finales go, Isaiah's doesn't disappoint.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”These words from The Battle Hymn of the Republic embody this passage from Isaiah's epic book.Poetry rises to a crescendo as the prophet explains the euphoria of his people's future hope as well as the brutal punishment which he believes God will rain down on Israel's enemiesWritten and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

Doom is coming.The days of all those who fail to follow God wholeheartedly are numbered.Nor is this any kind of fair-weather following.Performative box ticking gets nowhere with God, it seems.Isaiah wants his people to be completely aware of what is coming if they do not undertake a volte face, put away their pagan idols and return to the one deity who has consistently fought their battles and had their back.Enjoy an Old Testament prophet giving it both barrels!Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

A childless old woman who is drunk on wine is about as defenceless and vulnerable as life can get in Old Testament times. This woman who represents the city of Jerusalem has been brought down by her own personal four horsemen: ruin, destruction, famine and sword. She is inconsolable and her children are as powerless as she is, lying unconscious on the ground like an antelope caught in a net and which has fainted from fear. The prophet Isaiah is one of literature's great poets and his book is rich in metaphors like this one.I hope you love it as much as I do.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

Hard as it may be to believe that freedom and a return to Jerusalem are just around the corner for Israel's exiled Jews, Isaiah does what he can to impress upon his readers that this is exactly what is about to happen.He also appears to spell out in uncanny detail that a man is coming who will be verbally and physically abused for the wrongdoings of everyone else, and that he will be "a light to the Gentiles."For good reason, Christians see Jesus Christ as this man, making Isaiah one of the hottest and best loved prophets in the entire Bible.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music.Cover art by Lisa GoffSend comments and feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

A shamed princess having to hoist her skirts in order to cross streams, and who sits in the dirt like a commoner.This is how the prophet Isaiah sees the proud empire of Babylon.It seems improbable, but Isaiah believes anything is possible with his God.Right now, God is predicting that his own people will be freed from Babylonian captivity without bloodshed or money changing hands, and that the mighty Babylonian Empire is about to face its own catatsrophic fall.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffSend comments of feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

A man who will be "a light to the Gentiles" and who will "open the eyes of the blind and set the prisoners free."It's easy to see how Christians believe Isaiah was predicting the arrival of Jesus.But the prophet promises action much sooner, and much closer to home.In a move unprecedented in Near Eastern history, Persia's king will set his Israelite captives free. Isaiah predicts this, and its easy to see how people join the dots: if the prophet called the release from exile ahead of time, who's to say he wasn't not right about everything else?Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, we identify Lilith, a Jewish myth figure believed to have been married both to Adam and the Angel of Death.Isaiah also appears to predict New Testament holy man, John the Baptist, writes my favourite verse in the entire Bible, gets embroiled in a plagiarism battle and appears to hand his quill to another scribe.Quite an episode.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]

As the title suggests, Isaiah doesn't pull any punches.If graphic and repulsive use of bodily fluids as a metaphor get his readers' attention, the prophet is all in.However, anyone looking for action and adventure may be disappointed; in Isaiah's book, the drama is all in the writing.If you want a quintessential raging Old Testament prophet so incandescent that he tips  into apocalyptic language, look no further.

Isaiah's tirade against Israel's neighbours continues, and with it come vivid descriptions of Near Eastern Mediterranean trade in the eighth century BC.But God's fury doesn't stop with pagan kingdoms and empires; Judah too is in the firing line.Oh, and in this episode, the prophet also strips naked, and remains "au naturel" for three years.Truly, there is nothing in the Bible quite like the Book of Isaiah!

If you picture in your head a robed, beared prophet raging with florid language at at a nation that isn't listening to him, you are probably thinking of Isaiah.In this episode, he launches a broadside against nations who he believes are enemies of God.These are Israel's near neighbours and the prophet foresees disaster for each and every one of them.Enjoy the schadenfreude.WARNING: THIS EPISODE MENTIONS RAPE AND INFANT DEATHWritten and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa GoffE: [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

"Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."It's no wonder that these words written some 800 years before the birth of Jesus make the prophet Isaiah such a favourite with Christians, especially at Christmas. However, before Jesus arrives to save the day, things are going to get worse for Israel. Much, much worse.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyableWARNING: This episode mentions child death and rape

It's easy to see the Bible as fable, a kind of religious fairy tale with a moralistic sting in its tail.Passages like this one show that much of the book is rooted in actual historical events.These chapters are a snapshot of the late eighth century BC Middle East.The prophet Isaiah is begging the king of one of these nations (Ahaz of Judah) not to enter an alliance with two others (Israel and Aram) against the threat of an invasion from the Assyrian Empire.Instead, Ahaz should rely on God.In his prophecy which involves naming his own children as a sign to Judah and describing dead bodies lying like excrement on Jerusalem's streets, Isaiah appears to predict the arrival of Jesus, a divine rescuer who he refers to enigmatically as 'The Light of the World.'Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]: @WhollyBuyable

The poetry books are over and now it's time for the prophets to step up.These are the maverick outsiders, the truth tellers who appear able to channel the word of God and to warn their nations of the danger of turning their backs on him.Of all the men who rage through the pages of these books, Isaiah is perhaps the most quintessential, and certainly the most poetic.He is also much beloved of Christians, as he makes what appear to be pin sharp predictions of Jesus sone seven hundred years before he was born.Let the prophecy begin!Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]

How this book made it into the Bible is a mystery.Why it rarely gets a outing in church services us not surprising.;The Song of Songs is steamy stuff, so much so we've had to put an 'explicit content' warning on this episode.Some see the book as a metaphor for God's love for his church, others see a gentleman delighting in the aromatic fruits of a lady's garden as a wholly different kind of metaphor.EnjoyWritten and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any comments or feedback to [email protected]

In a book that rarely veers away from blank negativity and abject realism, the Teacher in Ecclesiastes gives readers yet another reality check:The fast don’t always win the race nor are the strong guaranteed to prevail in battle. The wise don’t always have enough to eat, the brilliant aren’t always rich and everyone is subject to the vagaries of time and chance. We simply make the most of the cards we are dealt and find joy where we can.(It'll come as no surprise that Ecclesiastes is one of the least quoted Old Testament books in the New Testament.)

Suffering is part of the human condition.But is it part of God's plan for his people?Why, if he is all powerful, doesn't he stop it?Yes listeners, we go there.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover Art by Lisa Goff

Gilead. Marthas. Handmaids. Eyes. They sound biblical but if they are, where and what do these references mean? Are actual slave women co-opted as surrogate baby providers in the Bible? Do they truly lie in their mistresses' laps to conceive and give birth? What do the Handmaids mean by "Blessed be the fruit"? And who was the original Jezebel? Fans of the show need look no further. This is the Bible of the Handmaid's Tale.Written and produced by Chas Bayfield.Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicCover art by Lisa GoffSend any questions or feedback to [email protected]

Meaningless! Meaningless! There aren't many books in the Bible or otherwise that begin as bleakly as this one.And, plot spoiler, the vibe doesn't lift much as Ecclesiastes progresses.There is no point to life it seems than for a person to eat, drink and take what pleasure they can from work, as a human lifespan is as brief as it is pointless. Furthermore, the dead are soon forgotten.Enjoy!