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Chapter 29

These are just snapshots of the Entire Bible Reading for this week on Video. To view the entire Videos WITH the New World Translation audio goto to my personal Webpage using these links: Isaiah Chapter 24 - https://www.bibliaprints.com/bible/isaiah/chapter-24/ Isaiah Chapter 25 - https://www.bibliaprints.com/bible/isaiah/chapter-25/ This is part of "The Photo Drama of the Bible", my personal Bible Study Project to make the Word of God come alive by making an image for every single verse of the Bible. Going very well at the moment, 605 images done , which equates to 2.01% of the Entire Bible done. "All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds by illustrations. Indeed, without an illustration he would not speak to them" - Matt 13:34 I feel illustrations feed the mind, just like the verbal illustrations Jesus used. It encouraged them to visualise his words by means of a picture. I find the organisations Artwork is amazing, it's a pity that some don't truly appreciate the artwork and the amount of detail and research that is spent on each image. What do you think?

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This may come later than expected. Trump's Board of Peace indicates a recognition that the UN has no teeth........at the moment!

I would like, but I am sure 2026 will be a spécial year

I saw a Facebook meme that was clearly not neutral, but it did raise an interesting point. The statement was it's interesting how ships hauling drugs are now no longer a problem since the US seized control of Venezuelan oil. The point being it was never about drugs. My point in bringing this up is, like Doug implied, rhetoric has a way of distorting reality.

Bearing in mind: "Believe nothing you hear, and 1/2 of what you see", Iran has claimed they have the unstoppable hypersonic missile. It travels so fast there is no defense against it. So, the USS Abraham Lincoln is very much on their radar, according to the hyperbolic messaging.

Hyperbolic tone aside, how is this different than any previous "armada" or repositioning of naval fleets?

Now the threat comes from India, a dangerous virus called Nipah. Around 110 people have been quarantined in India amid a new outbreak of the Nipah virus in the country. The disease has a high fatality rate and is on the World Health Organization's (WHO) list. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/what-know-about-nipah-virus-after-cases-emerge-india-2026-01-28/

I think something was lost in translation. This discussion of a "skipped generation" is simply referring to the possibility of some descendants of Adam and Eve simply left out of the genealogical records in the Bible. They would be skipped in the sense that they are simply not listed. For example, perhaps, at Genesis 5:6 the idea is that instead of being Seth's son, E'nosh might instead be his grandson or great grandson, and so on. These unlisted, ignored, forgotten, or skipped generations would still be descendants of Adam and, therefore, subject to sin and death, but they were simily not included in the record.

The pressure is on.. they keep on pushing until they cry for peace.

Part Two: Through the Smoke The inside of the SUV reeked of fear...sweat, tears, and the sharp tang of pepper spray clinging to clothes. Maria found herself pressed between a sobbing mother and her teenage son, both captured in a workplace raid. In front of her, an elderly man prayed in Hindi, his voice a threadbare whisper against the engine's growl. "Where are they taking us?" the mother asked. Maria didn't know. But through the heavily tinted windowd, she watched the streets of Minneapolis blur past...smoke rising from trash fires, protesters running alongside their van, pounding on the sides. Every impact made the mother utter another gentle round of comforting words to her son. The van lurched to a stop. Not at a detention center, but in an alley where another ICE unit waited. Maria heard voices outside, one rising above the rest: "We need to process the workplace arrests first. Park this one and wait for Morrison." Morrison. The name meant nothing, but the delay meant everything. Through the window, she watched agents arguing, gesturing at clipboards, overwhelmed by their own inefficiency. The young agent who'd arrested her leaned against the van, satisfaction plain on his face. That's when the back door swung open. A different agent climbed in...older, grayer, moving like his body carried more weight than just his vest. He scanned the faces until he found Maria. "You. The one who helped the injured woman. Step forward." Maria struggled to move with bound hands. The agent..his badge read Morrison...studied her face in the dim light. Something flickered in his eyes. Recognition? Yes...but along with it real confusion. "I remember you from yesterday," he said slowly. "Hennepin Avenue. My unit was blocked by protesters. A woman in a Toyota refused to honk, refused to move, just sat there while they screamed at her." His eyes narrowed. "Said she was one of Jehovah's Witnesses." Maria's voice came out steady despite her racing heart. "That was me." "They called you a traitor. Spit on your car. But you didn't react." "I needed to see my mother." Morrison's phone buzzed. He ignored it, still staring at her like she was a puzzle missing several pieces. It buzzed again. And again. "Sir?" The young agent peered in. "You need to..." "I know my job, Rodriguez." But Morrison pulled out his phone, and Maria watched his face transform. Text after text filled his screen. Photos. Sitting just inches away from him, Maria recognized them instantly...Sophia in her hospital bed, Maria beside her, helping her document symptoms. The last image showed Maria holding Sophia's hand when the nurse finally, finally listened and handed her a small cup of water and her new meds Morrison's voice cracked as he peered back and forth from his phone to Maria's face. "This is you. This is YOU...with my daughter. But how...?" Rodriguez pushed forward. "What? Sir, we need to process..." "Shut up." Morrison's hands shook as he scrolled up and down, up and down, reading and rereading his daughter's texts. "Sophia's had episodes for months. Doctors kept dismissing her. Said it was teenage anxiety. But this woman..." He looked up at Maria, and she thought she saw tears threatening somewhere deep in his eyes. "My daughter says you saved her life. They found an arrhythmia. Her doctor says she's going in for surgery tomorrow!" The van fell silent except for the distant sound of sirens and breaking glass. "Uncuff her," Morrison ordered. "Sir, she had no identification. Protocol states..." "I said uncuff her!" Morrison's voice boomed. "Unless you want to explain to the local news why we arrested the woman who saved an agent's daughter while her own mother lay dying." Rodriguez hesitated, looking between Morrison and Maria. "The protesters will see. They'll say we're playing favorites." "Let them." Morrison personally unlocked Maria's cuffs, his hands gentler than his voice. "Ma'am, do you have someone who can pick you up?" Maria rubbed her wrists, still processing the whiplash of freedom. "I... my car is near the hospital." "Rodriguez will drive you." It wasn't a request. Morrison climbed down from the van, then turned back. "My daughter... she said you told her that her voice matters. That you reminded her she wasn't invisible." "Everyone deserves to be heard," Maria said simply. Morrison nodded slowly. "Even at a protest. When they were calling you a traitor. You could have honked, you could have made your life easier." "Jehovah's witnesses are neutral, we believe Jehovah is the only person who can fix everything." She said simply. The words hung between them, heavy with meaning neither fully grasped. Morrison walked away, leaving Rodriguez to glumly gesture Maria toward a patrol car. As they drove through what looked like war-torn streets, protesters scattered at their approach, and Maria wondered: Was this Jehovah's hand? The perfect timing of Sophia's texts? Or simply the mathematics of actually BEING one of Jehovah's Witnesses...that helping one person creates ripples we never see coming? Rodriguez dropped her at the garage without a word. Maria sat in her car for twenty minutes, hands shaking too hard to drive. When she finally made it back to Mayo, visiting hours were over, but the night nurse recognized her. "Your mother woke up," she said gently. "Just for a few minutes. She asked for you." Maria found her mother sleeping again, but peacefully now. Her handbag sat untouched beside the bed...ID, green card, everything she'd needed to prove her right to exist. But she'd already proven something else, something no document could capture. On the chair lay a folded note: "The nurses told me you'd be back. Thank you so much for all your help...thank you for listening and being there...thank you for everything! Sophia Morrison. P.S. Dad says to tell you he's sorry?" Maria held the note and wept...for her mother, for Sophia, for the city burning outside, for the strange protection that came from refusing to see enemies in anyone. She'd walked through the fire by walking straight, helping whoever needed help, claiming no side but human kindness. The words of her favorite scripture came unbidden: "If God is for us, who will be against us?" But tonight she understood it differently. When we choose to be for everyone...protesters and agents, the frightened and the frightening...we walk in a protection deeper than politics, older than nations, stronger than the walls we build between us. Outside, Minneapolis still burned. But Maria Elena Vasquez sat in the cardiac unit's gentle light, holding her mother's hand and Sophia's note, understanding at last what her mother meant: Sometimes Jehovah's protection looks exactly like the thing we feared most...because it transforms our fear into someone else's salvation. She'd driven through a city tearing itself apart. But Maria understood now what her dying mother had always known...Jehovah's principles aren't restrictions, they're armor. Her neutrality hadn't been weakness or cowardice, as the protesters claimed. It was obedience, and obedience had positioned her exactly where she needed to be: free to help Morrison's daughter, available to aid the injured woman, memorable to the very agent who would later hold her freedom in his hands. The world had demanded she choose a side, but she'd already chosen...she'd chosen Jehovah's way years ago, and that choice had been choosing her protection before she ever needed it. Tomorrow, Minneapolis might burn again. But Maria would walk through it the same way she'd walked today: obedient, neutral, and therefore untouchable by any conflict smaller than the Kingdom she'd already claimed as her own. *I really tried to do justice to this small experience. Things are bad and are going to get worse, but by simply choosing each day to follow and apply Jehovah's principles to the best of our ability...we are ALREADY showing the obedience that will save our lives!

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-pressures-iran-come-table-massive-us-armada-draws-near The insanity continues

Jehovah does not wait for perfection before showing love. He watches for the heart to turn. Even a small step toward Him matters. When someone repents, Jehovah is already moving toward them. Picture a porch light at night. A father leaves it on—not because the house is perfect, not because the yard is clean, but because someone he loves might come home. The light is not a reward. It is a signal. You can still find your way. Jehovah does not stand with folded arms, measuring distance. He watches for movement of the heart. Isaiah wrote: “Let the wicked man leave his way and the harmful man his thoughts; let him return to Jehovah, who will have mercy on him.” —Isaiah 55:7. The turning comes first. The mercy meets it immediately. That means repentance is not crawling—it is turning around. It is not proving worth—it is choosing direction. And when that choice is made, Jehovah is already on the move, bringing forgiveness that lifts weight, relief that lets the chest breathe again, and warmth that says, You’re not alone on this walk back.

GB updates this Friday???😉

I think it’s good that we have this question because some don’t want to watch movies before convention. In my case however I watch them before hand because I learned the hard way that with children you can’t predict everything and I don’t like listen to talks without being able to watch the movies.

In my experience in our territory, all territory operations we perform in the field require a live cell/internet connection. I have seen the case where I mark some addresses and they look correct on my phone, but later find out they did not go through to the server due to a poor cell connection.

* I am not at liberty to say where this came from, and I have embellished the account greatly. But a very small experience from a faithful sister STILL deserves to be highlighted, even if I must obscure the facts to protect the person involved. I hope and pray that the lesson I personally learned from this experience shines through in this story...because I think it is paramount in relation to what we are facing today, in the very last of these last days! Part One: Into the Fire Maria Elena had driven through blizzards and tornadoes to see her mother, but she'd never driven through a city tearing itself apart. The smoke columns appeared first, dark fingers scratching at the Minneapolis skyline as she crossed into the city limits. Her aged Corolla's radio crackled with emergency broadcasts from all over Minnesota...ICE raids throughout the Twin Cities, protests erupting at detention sites, the mayor declaring a state of emergency. Maria reached over and switched it off. Her mother lay dying at Mayo, and that was the only emergency that mattered. But the city had other plans. At Lyndale Avenue, protesters flooded the intersection, their signs reading "ABOLISH ICE" and "NO HUMAN IS WORTHLESS." A young man with a megaphone pounded on her hood as she approached the stoplight, screaming and gesturing for her to honk in solidarity. Through her foggy window, she heard the chant: "If you're not with us, you're against us!" "I'm sorry," Maria mouthed, hands steady on the wheel. "I need to get to the hospital." "Then honk! That's all you we're asking... just HONK and show us you're with us!!" The leader's voice blared out as his face pressed close to her window. Several other people moved to encircle her car. "Unless you support these fascist raids?" "I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses. We remain politically neutral." Maria said loudly, clearly, rolling down her window a couple of inches, feeling the instant bite of the cold air as it clawed it's way inside. The words landed like a match on gasoline. The crowd's energy shifted, faces twisting from passionate to disgusted. "Neutral?" someone screamed. "While families are being torn apart?" The leader studied her brown skin, her tired eyes...his nose wrinkling in disgust. "You're Latina and you won't stand with your people?" He spat on her windshield. "Coward. Traitor." The light mercifully turned green. Maria inched forward through the crowd, their hands slapping her car, leaving frosted handprints like icy accusations. Her heart hammered, but she whispered the prayer that had carried her through her mother's diagnosis, through sleepless nights, through every test of faith: "Jehovah, help me walk through this fire." Three blocks from Mayo, she abandoned her car in a parking garage. The streets were safer on foot...ICE vans and protesters couldn't corner pedestrians as easily. She pulled her winter coat tight, tucking her long black hair beneath the hood, and stepped into the chaos. The hospital's cardiac wing felt like another planet...hushed, sterile, untouched by the inflamed city outside. Her mother slept, sedated and small, machines breathing for her. Maria kissed her forehead, walked back out to the waiting room and sank into a visitor's chair, finally allowing herself to cry. That's when she noticed the girl. In the next room, a teenager sat alone, frantically typing on her phone while tears streaked her face. Caucasian, maybe fifteen, wearing pajamas and mismatched socks. Maria recognized the look...abandoned by adults who thought they knew better. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" The girl...Sophia, according to her wristband...erupted in a mixture of fear, anger and frustration. "The doctors just won't listen to me! They keep saying it's anxiety, but I know something's wrong with my heart. It races and skips and they just talk over me like I'm not even here!" Maria sat beside her. For the next few hours, she forgot about the protests, forgot about her mother, forgot about everything except this frightened child who needed someone to see her. She helped Sophia document her symptoms, taught her to use medical terms the doctors couldn't easily dismiss. Then, a few hours later, when Sophia's heart monitor finally captured an episode, Maria was holding her hand. "You saved my life," Sophia whispered after the nurse came and agreed to finally adjust her medication. "They finally believe me." "You saved yourself," Maria squeezed gently. "I just reminded you that your voice matters." Her mother was sleeping peacefully, so Maria decided to leave and go to the sisters house that had been lovingly provided by the HLC just outside of Minneapolis. The security checkpoint at the hospital front doors was overwhelmed when Maria left. Guards were processing protesters who'd tried to block the ambulance bay. In the confusion, it wasn't until she'd walked six blocks that she realized, to her horror, that her handbag with her ID, green card, everything, it still sat beside her mother's bed! The realization hit just as the black unmarked SUV pulled up alongside her. "Ma'am? We need to speak with you." Three ICE agents emerged, hands on weapons, eyes scanning her brown skin like a crime scene. Behind them, a woman lay on the sidewalk, blood pooling from her temple while protesters were screaming at other ICE agents for pulling her violently from her own car. Without thinking, without hesitating, Maria rushed to her side. "Don't move her neck," Maria commanded, her nurse's aide training taking over. "Someone call 911!" "Ma'am, step away from the subject." "She could have a spinal injury..." "NOW!" The agents surrounded her, the woman's blood still on Maria's hands. The lead agent, young and jumpy, gestured to his partner. "Check her status." "I need to see identification," the partner said, his voice routine but firm. Maria's stomach dropped. "I...I left it at the hospital. With my mother." The young agent smiled coldly. "Sure you did." Two more agents moved in on either side of her, pinning her arms behind her back. As the handcuffs clicked around her wrists, Maria heard her mother's voice from a thousand prayers ago: "Mija, sometimes Jehovah's protection looks like the very thing we fear most." The van doors swung open like the mouth of a whale, ready to swallow her whole.

If there were a skipped generation besides Adam and Eve, they would still be alive because Adamic sin would not apply to them. They would be perfect even today.

Same lineage in Matthew and Luke. Matthew stops at Abraham but details every generation after and the ones in Genesis line up. Luke lists every generation back to Adam and those, likewise, correspond with Genesis. Skipping or compressing generations serves no purpose. In fact it raises questions as to who was skipped and why. Most of the people listed, especially in Luke's account, seem to have no historical impact beyond being an ancestor of Christ, so then we ask why include this "nobody" but skip that "nobody"? The ages of each father at the time of birth of their son in the Genesis account makes it difficult to reconcile with any skipped generation. If generations were skipped, then those ages are meaningless. Why bother including such ages?

Why would the Bible suddenly, and only in one spot, list genealogies metaphorically?

Is is possible that the lineages listed in Genesis are compressed and skip dozens of generations? Because if that were the case it, would add tens of thousands of years to human history.

I had never thought of DNA half-life before. I found something interesting on the internet. The concept of DNA half-life is essential for understanding the limits of DNA preservation and its implications for scientific research. With a half-life of approximately 521 years, DNA can provide valuable insights into the past, but its degradation over time poses challenges for recovering ancient genetic material. By studying the conditions that affect DNA stability, scientists can improve techniques for analyzing degraded samples and enhance our understanding of genetic history. I did read that some things, such as heat, can shorten the time it takes to deteriorate and that cold and dry conditions can preserve DNA somewhat longer.