Woe to the City of Bloodshed

Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder—no end to the prey! The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot! Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end— they stumble over the bodies!
Nahum 3:1–3
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Woe to the City of Bloodshed
The enemies of God have no regard for the gifts of God. Life means nothing to them except a means to an end. They disregard the worth of God’s creation and the people formed and shaped. God will not abide by their sin and unbelief. Woe to the city of blood. Their way is deceit. Their father is the devil. Naham tells us about the enemies’ ways. There is bloodshed and death all around. It is unbelief. They have rejected the Word of God and have gone after other gods. In the defense of their gods, they have committed shameful acts. The very thing we pray against in the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “And lead us not into temptation,” these hardened hearts have ended up in. Thus your God guards and keeps you by his Word so that the devil, the world, and your sinful nature do not mislead you or deceive you into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. He does it all by the power of his Son’s cross. It is by the blood of Jesus that you are guarded and kept. It is by the very preaching of that cross that you are made secure. It is by the declaration of the absolution won by Jesus that you are defended and made whole again.