“When the LORD, your God, brings you into the land which he swore
to your fathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
that he would give you,
a land with fine, large cities that you did not build,
with houses full of goods of all sorts that you did not garner,
with cisterns that you did not dig,
with vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant;
and when, therefore, you eat your fill,
take care not to forget the LORD,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.
The LORD, your God, shall you fear;
him shall you serve, and by his name shall you swear.”
—Deuteronomy 6:4-13
The houses that we did not build
with goods we did not earn are filled
from vineyards that we did not tend—
Will they be ours, Lord, in the end?
At tables laid with bread and wine
we did not make, there shall we dine
in cities filled with feasting halls—
yet none were driven from their walls.
In days gone by, by might and sword
and conquest did you give them, Lord;
in days to come are none cast out
from cities where the swords are plows.
Yet now we stand upon the height
and let the prospect fill our sight,
where all our hearts have always been—
but shall we ever enter in?
Turn back the hand that struck the rock;
silence the grumbling of the flock.
Let not the golden calf take form—
or else have mercy on us, Lord.
For all these things and more we’ve done,
and now our race is all but run.
This grace we beg on Jordan’s strand:
to enter then the promised land.
Imagined painting by Frans Pourbus the Elder (c. 1565–1580) depicting the Israelite‘s God showing Moses the Promised Land Photo By Sailko – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49066369
Kate Bluett 