Enduring Blessings

CHAPTER 22

As Yeshua, Miriam, and their children travel to Bethany, they encounter a destitute family along the way whom they nourish with food for their bellies and food for their souls.

 1 Some of Yeshua’s family, including his mother, and some of his kinsfolk asked him to remain in Nazareth and not to journey to Egypt. But Yeshua insisted they must go and said unto them, “I must be about my Father’s business and there are in Egypt things of which I must learn and do.”

 2 Even after all the years his family and kinsfolk in Nazareth had known him, only a few understood that in saying this, he spoke of his Father in Heaven and not of Yosef, who had died.

 3 When one of his relatives asked the day in which he should return, Yeshua could not answer and said, “I know only the beginning of my journey into Egypt, not the end, for my Father has not yet revealed it to me.”

 4 Yeshua noticed that his mother was sad, imagining that she might not see him again, but he said unto her and everyone there, “Fear not, for as you see us depart, so shall you see us return, for it is in Galilee and Judea that I will fulfill that which my Father has called me to do.”

 5 Thus, it was that Yeshua and Miriam and their two children departed from Nazareth and began their journey to Egypt. They all walked and carried their meager belongings, and only Yeshua’s carpentry tools, their food, and water supplies and some of Miriam’s weaving materials were carried on the back of the donkey they brought with them.

 6 Yeshua was exceedingly strong, and he often carried both children strapped in a long cloth about his back. When he tired, he put them in a little cart he had made that he pulled or harnessed to the donkey.

 7 They intended to journey first to Bethany that they might see the family of Miriam before they departed to Egypt. As they were traveling on that route and evening approached, they came upon a family of a man and his wife and four children at a well, and they appeared greatly enfeebled and destitute.

 8 Miriam came to the woman and asked, “By what are you afflicted that you can barely stand beside the well?”

 9 And the woman answered, “We are journeying from Sychar to the house of my brother in Malatha, south of Jerusalem. We hunger greatly, for we have had but crumbs to eat for weeks since the Romans put us into the street for taxes we cannot pay, for my husband was injured and cannot work.”

 10 Immediately, Miriam went to the supplies upon their donkey and gave the family most of their bread and cheese and all of their dried fish, leaving her own family only a little bread and cheese remaining for the evening meal and milk for Dara from her mother. And for this, she did not even speak to Yeshua, knowing he would act the same.

 11 Then Yeshua came over to them and asked if they would mind if his family journeyed with them as far as Bethany that they might have safety together in greater numbers. He asked this not for necessity, but to give an opportunity for his family to remain with the family in need for a time, in a way that the man could retain his dignity.

 12 The following day, the family of Yeshua gathered leaves and roots of plants for food and showed the family from Sychar the plants that were good to eat so that they might never hunger again upon their journey. And when they came again unto a village, Miriam purchased some more cheese and bread.

 13 And it came to pass that the family from Sychar journeyed with them to the outskirts of Bethany, but when they were invited to continue to the house of Miriam’s parents, they declined with great thankfulness for that which they had received, but insisted upon their desire to continue south toward their destination as quickly as possible.

 14 Before they parted, the man came to Yeshua and said unto him, “I perceive that you are a man of God, but even as that may be, I have never seen such kindness as you and your family have shown to mine. I desire to know from what spring you have drunk that you and your wife and your children are so different from all I have known.”

 15 And Yeshua said to him, “You are our brother and were in need, and your wife our sister, and your children our children. Verily, we are all children of Elohim; therefore, when we help one another, it is the same as if we were doing it unto God.

 16 “If you would have enduring blessings from this day, then remember to do unto your brothers and sisters across the land, even as you would do unto God and even as we have done unto you.”

 17 Thus, it was that the family of Sychar parted from the family of Yeshua, and never again did their paths cross. But the love they had received from Miriam and Yeshua and their children remained with them always, and heeding the words of Yeshua, it was magnified many times across the land.