Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 54 of 447 · 20 per page

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  25 “I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My Name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed [visions when on my bed at night].’ 26 “How long [shall this state of affairs continue]? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, 27 who think that they can make My people forget My Name by their [contrived] dreams which each one tells another, just as their fathers forgot My Name because of Baal? 28 “The prophet who has a dream may tell his dream; but he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat [for nourishment]?” says the LORD . 29 “Is not My word like fire [that consumes all that cannot endure the test]?” says the LORD , “and like a hammer that breaks the [most stubborn] rock [in pieces]? 30 “Therefore behold (hear this), I am against the [counterfeit] prophets,” says the LORD , “[I am descending on them with punishment, these prophets] who steal My words from one another [imitating the words of the true prophets]. 31 “Hear this, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD , “who use their [own deceitful] tongues and say, ‘Thus says the Lord.’ 32 “Hear this, I am against those who have prophesied false and made-up dreams,” says the LORD , “and have told them and have made My people err and go astray by their lies and by their reckless boasting; yet I did not send them or command them nor do they benefit and enhance [the life of] these people in the slightest way,” says the LORD . 33 “Now when this people or a prophet or a priest asks you [in jest], ‘What is the a oracle of the LORD [the burden to be lifted up and carried]?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘What oracle [besides the one that declares you people to be the burden]!’ The LORD says, ‘I will unburden Myself and I will abandon you.’ 34 “And as for the prophet, the priest, or [any of] the people, whoever says, ‘The oracle of the LORD ,’ [as if he knows God’s will], I will punish that man and his household. 35 “[For the future, in speaking of the words of the LORD ] thus each of you shall say to his neighbor and to his brother, ‘What has the LORD answered?’ or, ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 36 “For you will no longer remember the oracle of the LORD , because every man’s own word will become the oracle, [for as they mockingly call all prophecies oracles, whether good or bad, so will it prove to be to them; God will take them at their own word]; and you have perverted the words [not of a lifeless idol, but] of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  8 “They stretch out beside every [pagan] altar on clothes taken in pledge [to secure a loan, disregarding God’s command], And in the house of their God [in contempt of Him] they frivolously drink the wine [which has been] taken from those who have been fined. [Ex 22:26 ; Deut 24:12 , 13 ] 9 “Yet it was I [not the false gods] who destroyed the Amorite before them, Though his height was like the height of the cedars, And he was as strong as the oaks; I even destroyed his fruit above and his root below. 10 “Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, And I led you forty years through the wilderness That you might possess the land of the Amorite. 11 “Then I raised up some of your sons to be prophets [who gave you My revelation], And some of your young men to be Nazirites (dedicated ones). Is this not true, O you children of Israel?” says the LORD . [Num 6:1–8 ] 12 “But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink [despite their vows] And commanded the prophets, saying, ‘You shall not prophesy!’ 13 “Behold, I am weighted down beneath you As a cart that is weighted down when it is full of sheaves. 14 “Flight will be lost to the swift [so they will be unable to escape], And the strong shall not strengthen nor maintain his power, Nor shall the mighty man save his own life. 15 “He who handles the bow will not stand his ground, The one who is swift of foot will not escape, Nor will he who rides the horse save his life [from the invading army]. 16 “Even the bravest among the warriors shall flee naked on that day,” says the LORD . Amos 3 All the Families Are Guilty 1 H EAR THIS word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt: 2 “I have known [chosen, cared for, and loved] only you of all the families of the earth; Therefore I shall punish you for all your wickedness.” 3 Do two men walk together unless they have made an appointment? 4 Does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Does a young lion growl from his den if he has not captured something? 5 Does a bird fall into a trap on the ground when there is no bait in it? Does a trap spring up from the ground when it has caught nothing at all? [Of course not! So it is that Israel has earned her impending judgment.] 6 If a trumpet is blown in a city [warning of danger] will not the people tremble? If a disaster or misfortune occurs in a city has not the LORD caused it?

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  10 “Because you [descendants of Esau] have said, ‘These two nations [Israel and Judah] and these two lands shall be mine, and we will take possession of them,’ although the LORD was there, 11 therefore, as I live,” says the Lord GOD , “I will deal with you in accordance with the anger and envy you showed because of your hatred for them; and I will make Myself known among them [as Judge] when I judge and punish you. 12 “Then you will know [without any doubt] that I am the LORD , and that I have heard all your scornful speeches which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, ‘They have been made a wasteland; they have been given to us as food.’ 13 “So you have boasted and spoken arrogantly against Me, and have multiplied your words against Me; I have heard it.” 14 ‘Thus says the Lord GOD , “While the whole earth rejoices, I will make you a wasteland. 15 “As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so I will do to you; you will be a desolate waste, O Mount Seir, and all Edom, all of it. Then they will know [without any doubt] that I am the LORD .” ’ Ezekiel 36 The Mountains of Israel to Be Blessed 1 “A ND YOU, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD . 2 ‘Thus says the Lord GOD , “Because the enemy has said of you, ‘Aha!’ and, ‘The ancient heights have become our property,’ 3 therefore prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD , “For good reason they have made you a desolation, and they crushed you from every side so that you would become a possession of the rest of the nations and you have become the talk and the whispering of the people.” ’ ” 4 ‘Therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD .

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  46 He also gave their crops to the grasshopper, And the fruit of their labor to the locust. 47 He destroyed their vines with [great] hailstones And their sycamore trees with frost. 48 He gave over their cattle also to the hailstones, And their flocks and herds to thunderbolts. [Ex 9:18–21 ] 49 He sent upon them His burning anger, [Ex 12:23 ] His fury and indignation and distress, A band of angels of destruction [among them]. 50 He leveled a path for His anger [to give it free run]; He did not spare their souls from death, But turned over their lives to the plague. 51 He killed all the firstborn in Egypt, The first and best of their strength in the tents [of the land of the sons] of Ham. 52 But God led His own people forward like sheep And guided them in the wilderness like [a good shepherd with] a flock. 53 He led them safely, so that they did not fear; But the sea engulfed their enemies. [Ex 14:27 , 28 ] 54 So He brought them to His holy land, To this mountain [Zion] which His right hand had acquired. 55 He also drove out the nations before the sons of Israel And allotted their land as an inheritance, measured out and partitioned; And He had the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents [the tents of those who had been dispossessed]. 56 Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God And did not keep His testimonies (laws). 57 They turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers; They were twisted like a warped bow [that will not respond to the archer’s aim]. 58 For they provoked Him to [righteous] anger with their high places [devoted to idol worship] And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images [by denying Him the love, worship, and obedience that is rightfully and uniquely His]. 59 When God heard this, He was filled with [righteous] wrath; And utterly rejected Israel, [greatly hating her ways], 60 So that He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh, The tent in which He had dwelled among men, 61 And gave up His strength and power (the ark of the covenant) into captivity, And His glory into the hand of the enemy (the Philistines). [1 Sam 4:21 ] 62 He also handed His people over to the sword, And was infuriated with His inheritance (Israel). [1 Sam 4:10 ] 63 The fire [of war] devoured His young men, And His [bereaved] virgins had no wedding songs. 64 His priests [Hophni and Phinehas] fell by the sword, And His widows could not weep. [1 Sam 4:11 , 19 , 20 ] 65 Then the Lord awakened as from sleep, Like a [mighty] warrior who awakens from the sleep of wine [fully conscious of his power]. 66 He drove His enemies backward; He subjected them to lasting shame and dishonor.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Hosea 12 Ephraim Reminded 1 E PHRAIM FEEDS on the [emptiness of the] wind And [continually] pursues the [parching] east wind [which brings destruction]; Every day he multiplies lies and violence. Further, he makes a covenant with Assyria And (olive) oil is carried to Egypt [to seek alliances]. [Is 30:6 , 7 ] 2 The LORD also has a dispute [a legal complaint and an indictment] with Judah, And He will punish Jacob in accordance with his ways; He will repay him in accordance with his deeds. 3 In their mother’s womb he took his brother by the heel, And in his maturity he contended with God. [Gen 25:26 ; 27:36 ] 4 He wrestled with the angel and prevailed; He wept [in repentance] and sought His favor. He met Him at Bethel And there God spoke with [him and through him with] us— [Gen 28:12–19 ; 32:28 ; 35:1–15 ] 5 Even the LORD , the God of hosts, The name of Him [who spoke with Jacob] is the LORD . 6 Therefore, return [in repentance] to your God, Observe and highly regard kindness and justice, And wait [expectantly] for your God continually. 7 A merchant, in whose hand are false and fraudulent balances; He loves to oppress and exploit. 8 Ephraim said, “I have indeed become rich [and powerful as a nation]; I have found wealth for myself. In all my labors they will not find in me Any wickedness that would be sin.” [Rev 3:17 ] 9 But I have been the LORD your God since [you became a nation in] the land of Egypt; I will make you live in tents again, As in the days of the appointed and solemn a festival. [Lev 23:39–43 ] 10 I have also spoken to [you through] the prophets, And I gave [them] many visions [to make My will known], And through the prophets I gave parables [to appeal to your sense of right and wrong]. 11 Is there wickedness (idolatry) in Gilead? Surely the people there are worthless. In Gilgal [they defy Me when] they sacrifice bulls, Yes, [after My judgment] their [pagan] altars are like the stone heaps In the furrows of the fields. 12 Now Jacob (Israel) fled into the open country of Aram (Paddan-aram), [Gen 28:2 , 5 ] And [there] Israel (Jacob) worked and served for a wife, And for a wife he kept sheep . [Gen 29:18–20 ; 30:31 ; 31:38–41 ] 13 And by a prophet (Moses) the LORD brought Israel up from Egypt, And by a prophet Israel was preserved. 14 Ephraim has provoked most bitter anger; So his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him [invoking punishment] And bring back to him his shame and dishonor. Hosea 13 Ephraim’s Idolatry 1 W HEN EPHRAIM spoke, there was trembling and terror.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  Sounding a note of concern similar to that expressed by Murray twenty years earlier, Bambara complained about Black women being “jammed in the rigid confines of those basically oppressive social contrived roles,” arguing that these investments were rooted in the economic demands made on men to accumulate property in a capitalist system and with the imposed cultural dictates of Christianity. If precolonial African societies were an indicator, Bambara argued (despite her skepticism over white anthropological accounts of Africa), “no rigid and hysterical separation based on sexual taboos” existed.58 Still, Black men frequently remained invested in the idea “that Black women must be supportive and patient so that Black men can regain their manhood. The notion of womanhood—they argue … is dependent on his defining his manhood. So the shit goes on.” These men, she accused, were “obsessive,” about their “lost balls.” But revolution “entails at the very least cracking through the veneer of this sick society’s definition of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine.’”59 Not only would engagement with revolution transform the self, and implode gender role ideology, but it would necessarily transform family structures. Invoking Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism, Bambara argued that when willfully engaged in a revolutionary freedom struggle, “the ‘family’ was no longer a socially ordained nuclear unit to perpetuate the species or legitimize sexuality, but an extended kinship of cellmates and neighbors linked in the business of actualizing a vision of a liberated society.”60 As Brooks demanded of intellectuals, Bambara turned the notion of family on its head and then offered up a completely reconfigured concept that she viewed as more relevant to the aims of Black revolutionary struggle. Black women, particularly Black clubwomen, had been the original theoreticians of the Black family as an institution. Like Cooper who argued that “a race is but a total of families,” Bambara connected family configuration to the articulation of racial identity or “Blackhood.”61 But she rejected the respectable ideas of family that Cooper and early race women believed in. Bambara entered into that long intellectual legacy of theorizing race and family, cultivated by Black women, showing more concretely the linkages between one’s racial goals and the ways in which that directly related to the structure of the Black family. However, she rejected the liberal, assimilationist paradigms that Murray and others adopted by associating binary configurations of gender with hierarchical ideas propagated by white supremacy, capitalism, and Christianity. Bambara thus insisted on the need for a political and economic revolution.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  2 “You who hate good and love evil, Who tear the skin off my people And their flesh from their bones; 3 You who eat the flesh of my people, Strip off their skin from them, Break their bones And chop them in pieces as for the pot, Like meat in a kettle.” 4 Then they will cry to the LORD , But He will not answer them; Instead, He will even hide His face from them at that time [withholding His mercy] Because they have practiced and tolerated and ignored evil acts. [Is 1:15 ] 5 Thus says the LORD concerning the [false] prophets who lead my people astray; When they have something good to bite with their teeth, They call out, “Peace,” But against the one who gives them nothing to eat, They declare a holy war. 6 Therefore it will be night (tragedy) for you—without vision, And darkness (cataclysm) for you—without foresight. The sun shall go down on the [false] prophets, And the day shall become dark and black over them. 7 The seers shall be ashamed And the diviners discredited and embarrassed; Indeed, they shall all cover their mouths [in shame] Because there is no answer from God. 8 But in fact, I am filled with power, With the Spirit of the LORD , And with justice and might, To declare to Jacob his transgression And to Israel his sin. 9 Now hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob And rulers of the house of Israel, Who hate and reject justice And twist everything that is straight, 10 Who build Zion with blood [and extortion and murder] And Jerusalem with violent injustice. 11 Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, Her priests teach for a fee, And her prophets foretell for money; Yet they lean on the LORD , saying, “Is not the LORD among us? No tragedy or distress will come on us.” [Is 1:10–15 ] 12 Therefore, on account of you a Zion shall be plowed like a field, Jerusalem shall become b a heap of ruins, And the mountain of the house [of the LORD ] shall become like a densely wooded hill. [Jer 26:17–19 ] Micah 4 Peaceful Latter Days 1 B UT IT shall come about in the last days That the mountain of the house of the LORD Shall be established as the highest and chief of the mountains; It shall be above the hills, And peoples shall flow [like a river] to it. 2 And many nations shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD , To the house of the God of Jacob, That He may teach us about His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law shall go forward from Zion, And the word of the LORD [the revelation about Him and His truth] from Jerusalem. 3 And He will judge between many peoples And render decisions for strong and distant nations.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  By 1913, she argued that Garrison’s history in the abolition movement demonstrated that “if it had not been agitation, continuous, earnest almost fierce agitation against the iniquitous institution of slavery, we might have all been slaves today.” 21 Meddling, then, had merely been a euphemism for agitation, and by 1913, she clearly determined to throw off the use of euphemisms and drive right to the point. Surely “college educated men and women knew that no race which allowed its rights violently to be snatched away without a loud and earnest protest against it, could maintain its own self-respect.” Yet, much to her chagrin, racial elites continued to suggest that “agitation would do us no good.” 22 To these critics, she riposted, “it is quite true that the wrong kind of agitation would do us no good. The wrong kind of church-going or the wrong kind of any good thing will do us no good.” 23 In language that she would return to in her 1951 speech, she set about making clear exactly what the right kind of agitation should look like. Deriding the “blatant, rattle-brained people who tear passion to tatters about wrongs, both real and fancied, in season and out,” Terrell insisted that it was nonetheless “unreasonable to condemn the proper, dignified agitation which is the only way to arouse the conscience of the public against evils and injustices of a certain kind.” 24 Dignified agitation was proper agitation; and the dignified class should be in the vanguard of dignified agitators. Dignified agitation took as its goal the shifting of public opinion by unapologetically calling attention to the violation of rights and the preponderance of wrongs. Her invocation of dignity also recalls Cooper’s calls for Black women to secure the “undisputed dignity of [their] womanhood.” On the one hand, Terrell, as I will demonstrate momentarily, invoked “dignified” synonymously with respectable. But her use of that word also suggests that she concedes the inherent dignity and personhood of Black people, and that it is from that space of “undisputed dignity” that she advocates for the importance of agitation as a means to secure the dignity of Black life. Her commitments to racial agitation both revise and augment existing genealogies of racial agitation theory within Black intellectual thought, especially among African American women. Ida B. Wells is usually the race woman most associated with the work of racial agitation. She developed her philosophy of racial agitation under the mentorship of newspaper editor T. Thomas Fortune, one of the most radical race theorists of the nineteenth century. 25 Under Fortune’s tutelage, Wells rejected saccharine aspirations toward racial integration and embraced armed self-defense as a response to lynching and white racist violence. Terrell is rarely understood to be a part of this same intellectual genealogy, usually because of her class politics, but like Wells, she rejected uplift politics as the sole or primary path to Black freedom. Both women believed in insistent and sustained agitation to bring about social change.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  And the public, long inured to this prescribed sort of amputation, no longer deeply cares. Indeed, there is little revolt of any sort left in modern man. He no longer acts, he reacts. He is the victim who at long last has been caught in his own trap. What I am trying to say by all this is that the question to what extent a writer may be permitted to speak freely and naturally—on any question, any subject—is only part of a greater question, in a word: what is freedom ? Men will fight and die, apparently, for greater political or economic freedom, perhaps even for religious freedom, but when it comes to education—what and how our children should be taught—or the right to speak and act freely in the domain of sex, or even to write about sex openly, honestly, unashamedly, they display striking little courage. So it seems to me, at any rate. Yet sex and education are of cardinal importance in the creation of any social fabric. Indeed, there are many today who are convinced that most of our woes stem from our reluctance or our inability to cope with these fundamental issues. To get back to the core of the matter…. I repeat that, in writing The Rosy Crucifixion , I had but one thought in mind-to tell the story of the crucial years which marked a turning point in my life, and to relate my experiences (good and bad) as honestly and as faithfully as possible. In short, to expose the whole man and thus, obliquely, the society which fostered him. It therefore seems somewhat ridiculous to be asked, as I often am, whether I could not have written otherwise, meaning—could I not have rendered my words and thoughts more palatable, less offensive to public taste. (Who are the arbiters of taste, by the way?) This same sort of question has been put to every innovator throughout the ages. I should like to add, moreover, that I very much question the wisdom, the purity and the understanding of the so-called guardians of morality who so brashly assume responsibility for the mental, moral and spiritual health of the dear public. What tests have they undergone to earn the right to judge and condemn those who do not subscribe to their view of life? No, the real protectors, not of the “public” but of humanity, are never moralists but rather men of spirit. These men I revere. They do not talk good and evil, they talk God. They do not judge, punish and condemn; they show compassion. And what is compassion if not understanding tempered by love? No, I have no fear that those who read my works will become depraved or demoralized. Indeed, I possess thousands of letters from readers all over the world which tell the opposite story.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  Forgive me, but I must go into it further…. The last time it happened was while I was writing Plexus . During the year or so that I was occupied with this work—one of the worst periods, in other respects, that I have ever lived through—the inundation was almost continuous. Huge blocks—particularly the dream parts—came to me just as they appear in print and without any effort on my part, except that of equating my own rhythm with that of the mysterious dictator who had me in his thrall. In retrospect I wonder about this period, for the reason that every morning on entering my little studio I had first to quell the surge of anger, disgust and loathing which the daily drama inevitably aroused. Quieting myself as best I could, reproving and admonishing myself aloud, I would sit before the machine—and strike the tuning fork. Bang! Like a sack of coal it would spill out. I could keep it up for three or four hours at a stretch, interrupted only by the arrival of the mailman. At lunch more wrangling. Just sufficient to bring me to the boil. Then back to my desk, where I would again tune in and race on until the next interruption. When I had finished the book, a rather long one, I was so keyed up that I confidently expected to write two more books—pronto . However, nothing worked out as I had expected. The world went to smash about me. My own little world, I mean. For three years thereafter I was unable to advance more than a page at a time, with long intervals between these spurts. The book which I was endeavoring to write—getting up the courage to write, would be better!—I had been thinking and dreaming about for over twenty-five years. My despair reached such a point that I was almost convinced my writing days were over. To make matters worse, my intimate friends seemed to take pleasure in insinuating that I could write only when things were bad for me. It was true that seemingly I had no longer anything to fight. I was only fighting myself, fighting the venom which I had unconsciously stored up. To come back to the Voice…. There was The World of Lawrence , to take another instance. Begun at Clichy, continued in Passy and abandoned after the writing of some seven to eight hundred pages. A misfire. A flop. Yet what a grand affair it was!

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  4 They pour out words, speaking arrogant things; All who do evil boast proudly. [Jude 14 , 15 ] 5 They crush Your people, O LORD , And afflict and abuse Your heritage. 6 a They kill the widow and the alien And murder the fatherless. 7 Yet they say, “The LORD does not see, Nor does the God of Jacob (Israel) notice it.” 8 Consider thoughtfully, you senseless (stupid ones) among the people; And you [dull-minded] fools, when will you become wise and understand? 9 He who made the ear, does He not hear? He who formed the eye, does He not see? 10 He who instructs the nations, Does He not rebuke and punish, He who teaches man knowledge? 11 The LORD knows the thoughts of man, That they are a mere breath (vain, empty, futile). [1 Cor 3:20 ] 12 Blessed [with wisdom and prosperity] is the man whom You discipline and instruct, O LORD , And whom You teach from Your law, 13 That You may grant him [power to calm himself and find] peace in the days of adversity, Until the pit is dug for the wicked and ungodly. 14 For the LORD will not abandon His people, Nor will He abandon His inheritance. 15 For judgment will again be righteous, And all the upright in heart will follow it. 16 Who will stand up for me against the evildoers? Who will take a stand for me against those who do wickedness? 17 If the LORD had not been my help, I would soon have dwelt in [the land of] silence. 18 If I say, “My foot has slipped,” Your compassion and lovingkindness, O LORD , will hold me up. 19 When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your comforts delight me. 20 Can a throne of destruction be allied with You, One which frames and devises mischief by decree [under the sacred name of law]? 21 They band themselves together against the life of the righteous And condemn the innocent to death. 22 But the LORD has become my high tower and defense, And my God the rock of my refuge. 23 He has turned back their own wickedness upon them And will destroy them by means of their own evil; The LORD our God will wipe them out. Psalm 95 Praise to the LORD , and Warning against Unbelief. 1 O COME, let us sing joyfully to the LORD ; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before His presence with a song of thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with songs. 3 For the LORD is a great God And a great King above all gods, 4 In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The peaks of the mountains are His also. 5 The sea is His, for He made it [by His command]; And His hands formed the dry land.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  12 “Therefore their way will be to them like slippery paths In the dark; they will be pushed and fall into them; For I will bring disaster on them, In the year of their punishment,” says the LORD . 13 “And I have seen a foolish and an offensive thing in the prophets of Samaria: They prophesied by Baal and caused My people Israel to go astray. 14 “Also I have seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem: They commit adultery and walk in lies; They encourage and strengthen the hands of evildoers, So that no one has turned back from his wickedness. All of them have become like Sodom to Me, And her inhabitants like Gomorrah. 15 “Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts in regard to the prophets, ‘Behold, I am going to feed them [the bitterness of] wormwood And make them drink the poisonous water [of gall], For from the [counterfeit] prophets of Jerusalem Profaneness and ungodliness have spread into all the land.’ ” 16 Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Do not listen to the words of the [false] prophets who prophesy to you. They are teaching you worthless things and are leading you into futility; They speak a vision of their own mind and imagination And not [truth] from the mouth of the LORD . 17 “They are continually saying to those who despise Me [and My word], ‘The Lord has said, “You will have peace” ’; And they say to everyone who walks after the stubbornness of his own heart, ‘No evil will come on you.’ 18 “But who [among them] has stood in the council of the LORD , That he would perceive and hear His word? Who has marked His word [noticing and observing and paying attention to it] and has [actually] heard it? 19 “Behold, the tempest of the LORD has gone forth in wrath, A whirling tempest; It will whirl and burst on the heads of the wicked. 20 “The anger of the LORD will not turn back Until He has set in motion and accomplished the thoughts and intentions of His heart; In the last days you will clearly understand it. 21 “I did not send [these counterfeit] prophets, Yet they ran; I did not speak to them, Yet they prophesied. 22 “But if they had stood in My council, Then they would have caused My people to hear My words, Then they would have turned My people from their evil way And from the evil of their decisions and deeds. 23 “Am I a God who is at hand,” says the LORD , “And not a God far away?” 24 “Can anyone hide himself in secret places So that I cannot see him?” says the LORD . “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD .

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  32 “Behold, you are to them like a love song by one who has a pleasant voice and plays well on a stringed instrument [merely to entertain them]; for they hear your words but do not practice them. 33 “So when it comes to pass—as it most certainly will—then they will know [without any doubt] that a prophet has been among them.” Ezekiel 34 Prophecy against the Shepherds of Israel 1 A ND THE word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, the [spiritual] shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD , “Woe (judgment is coming) to the [spiritual] shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? 3 “You eat the fat [the choicest of meat], and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the best of the livestock, but you do not feed the flock. 4 “You have not strengthened those who are weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bandaged the crippled, you have not brought back those gone astray, you have not looked for the lost; but you have ruled them with force and violence. 5 “They were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the predators of the field. 6 “My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; My flock was scattered over all the face of the earth and no one searched or sought them.” ’ ” [Matt 9:36 ] 7 Therefore, you [spiritual] shepherds, hear the word of the LORD : 8 “As I live,” says the Lord GOD , “certainly because My flock has become prey, My flock has even become food for every predator of the field for lack of a shepherd, and My shepherds did not search for My flock, but rather the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock; 9 therefore, you [spiritual] shepherds, hear the word of the LORD : 10 ‘Thus says the Lord GOD , “Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will demand My flock from them and make them stop tending the flock, so that the shepherds cannot feed themselves anymore. I will rescue My flock from their mouth, so that they will not be food for them.” ’ ” The Restoration of Israel 11 For thus says the Lord GOD , “Behold, I Myself will search for My flock and seek them out. 12 “As a shepherd cares for his sheep on the day that he is among his scattered flock, so I will care for My sheep; and I will rescue them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  What this means for parents is that you never know what your child’s “sex education” class may entail. Only fourteen states require that sex ed be medically accurate. Yet even that is no guarantee. Mine is supposed to be one of them. Yet it wasn’t until the spring of 2015 that a judge ruled for the first time against a public school system that was actively teaching misinformation: students in the city of Clovis, California, had for years been made to watch videos that compared an unmarried woman who had intercourse to a “dirty shoe” and were encouraged to chant the antigay motto “One man, one woman, one life.” Around that same time, Alice Dreger, a professor of medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, live-tweeted her son’s abstinence-based sex education class from a public high school in politically progressive East Lansing, Michigan. Instructors there warned about the potential failure rates of contraceptives, citing, as an example, a box of condoms in which every single one had a hole! They also advised the boys to seek out “good girls” who say no to sex. At one point, Dreger tweeted, the students were told, “‘We are going to roll this dice 8 times. Every time your number comes up, pretend your condom failed and you get a paper baby.’” She followed that up shortly with “Paper babies are being handed out to EVERYONE. They have ALL HAD CONDOM FAILURE AND THE WHOLE CLASS IS PREGNANT.” When it was over, Dreger tweeted, “I just want to grab all those kids after school and say HERE IS THE TRUTH. SEX FEELS GOOD. THAT’S WHY YOU SEEK IT. TAKE CARE & HAVE FUN.” Life Is Like an English Essay

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  that recently he had been neglected: ‘ Late for every damned meal - running round with that girl — you don’t care what happens to me any more. A lot you care about my indigestion! I’ve got to eat any old thing these days from cow-hide to bricks. Well, you listen to me, that’s not what I pay for; get that into your head! I pay for good meals to be served on time; on time, do you hear? And I expect my wife to be in her rightful place at my table to see that the omelette’s properly prepared. What’s the matter with you that you can’t go along and make it yourself? When we were first married you always made my omelettes yourself. I won’t eat yellow froth with a few strings of parsley in it — it reminds me of the dog when he’s sick, it’s disgusting! And I won’t go on talking about it either, the next time it happens I’ll sack the cook. Damn it all, you were glad enough of my help when I found you prac- tically starving in New York — but now you’re for ever racing off with that girl. It’s all this damned animal’s fault that you met her!’ He would kick out sideways at the terrified Tony, who had lately been made to stand proxy for Stephen. But worst of all was it when Ralph started weeping, because, as he said, his wife did not love him any more, and because, as he did not always say, he felt ill with his painful, chronic dyspepsia. One day he must make feeble love through his tears: “ Angela, come here — put your arms around me — come and sit on my knee the way you used to. His wet eyes looked dejected yet rather greedy: ‘ Put your arms around me, as though you cared —’ He was always insistent when most ineffectual. That night he appeared in his best silk pyjamas — the pink ones that made his complexion look sallow. He climbed into bed with the sly expression that Angela hated —it was so porno- graphic. * Well, old girl, don’t forget that you’ve got a man about the house; you haven’t forgotten it, have you?’ After which followed one or two flaccid embraces together with much arro- gant masculine bragging; and Angela, sighing as she lay and en- dured, quite suddenly thought of Stephen. THE WELL OF LONELINESS I7I 2 Pacine restlessly up and down her bedroom, Stephen would be thinking of Angela Crossby — haunted, tormented by Angela’s words that day in the garden: ‘ Could you marry me, Stephen? ’ and then by those other pitiless words: ‘ Can I help it if you’re — what you obviously are? ’

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  that is reflective of a broader problem. You’re saying, this thing you are doing right now that bothers me... it’s a thing you do often and therefore is something I see as a character flaw. The situation stops being about what they did and becomes about who they are. For instance, imagine you make a mistake at work and one of your co- workers gets angry with you. They send you a hostile email that you find inappropriate and upsetting. You understand why they are angry and even take responsibility for the mistake you made, but you think they should have responded differently. You immediately fire an email back to them* that reads, “I don’t appreciate how you responded to this. Your constant hostility to me is unfair and unprofessional.” Such a response might seem completely reasonable and even accurate. This hostility you’re responding to might be way too frequent, unfair, and unprofessional. There might be an actual pattern of problematic behavior there that needs exploring at some point. It doesn’t matter if it’s true, though. It likely won’t be productive in the moment for two reasons. First, that defensiveness we talked about in chapter 10 is more likely to come out when they are feeling attacked. Once the conversation becomes about who they are instead of what they did, you should expect them to get defensive, and that defensiveness makes it harder for them to think clearly to have a productive conversation. Second, the problem with generalizing like that is that you inadvertently let them off the hook. In this hypothetical example of the hostile email, which of these two sentences is easier for the other person to dispute? 1. “What you wrote was hostile and unprofessional.” 2. “You are hostile and unprofessional.” The first one is quite a bit harder for them to dispute, right? It forces them to look at the singular thing they did – the email they wrote – and justify whether or not it was unprofessional or overly hostile. They have to defend that particular action. They may try and respond with, “How dare you call me unprofessional?” to which you can respond with, “I didn’t. I said this email was unprofessional.”

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  understanding her motivations and the motivations of those around her. She had a background in psychology, which was of course where much of this insight came from, but I got the sense that, separate from that training and education, she was just an introspective and emotionally wise person who thought a lot about why people, including herself, felt the way they felt and did the things they did. Izzy grew up with an angry dad. She described him as having “struggled with anger for maybe all of his life.” Before we get to that, though, let’s talk about what he was like when he wasn’t angry. Because her dad provides us with one of those cases where there was a real disconnect between who he was most of the time and who he was when he was mad. “Outside of his anger, he’s generally a pleasant person to be around,” Izzy explained. “He’s charismatic and really loves talking to people. He is a very loving person.” At the same time, though, she said, “When he does get angry, he loses control emotionally. He’ll lash out at people verbally. He’ll say things that don’t really seem aligned to the character he has when he’s not angry.” He would say things that were deeply hurtful. In fact, she said “he knows the thing to say that would be hurtful” in a given moment and will use that against people. For instance, one time when she disagreed with him, he got angry and responded with, “you’re such a difficult person. I feel bad for whoever marries you.” When she was growing up, she thought she was the cause of his anger because he would blow up if she did something he didn’t like. Now she has realized that “his anger comes from a place of not being able to manage feelings that are overwhelming to him.” She thinks he gets anxious, stressed out, and disappointed easily and has a hard time regulating his emotions in these situations. “If things feel out of control to him, that’s really what triggers his anger.” His anger was typically directed at people he knew well, such as family. He wouldn’t usually direct it at his co-workers or at strangers. Though she acknowledged that he was a little bit prone to road rage. Overall, though, “it would take more for him to get upset at a stranger than it would his family.” She thinks this is because he feels comfortable with family so it’s safer to express

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  CHAPTER 12 STRATEGY SEVEN: STEP AWAY FROM ONLINE RAGE The “Non-Ignorable Role” of Anger Online In 2014 Rui Fan and colleagues set out to discover the online contagiousness of particular emotions. 62 They wanted to know which emotions spread most quickly across social media. Using Weibo, a Chinese platform they described as similar to Twitter, they captured approximately 70 million posts from 278,654 users. They coded the emotionality of these posts (based on emoticon usage, caps, and other factors) into four categories: disgust, sadness, joy, and anger. They then looked to see which posts were most likely to be liked or shared by others. What they found was fascinating, though, not necessarily surprising to anyone who has spent considerable time online over the past decade. People didn’t typically share posts associated with disgust or sadness, at least not compared with their sharing of joyful or angry posts. They did share joyful posts, when they were connected to the person who shared the original post. They shared angry posts, though, whether they were connected to the person or not. In other words, people joined in the joy of others when they knew them, but joined in the anger whether they knew them or not. This led the authors to write “we conjecture that anger plays a non-ignorable role in massive propagations of the negative news about the society.”* How Online Emotions Are Similar/Different What the study above really shows is something most of you have already

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  The survey itself is intended to be angering, with questions such as “With how many men (other than your father) has your mother had extramarital relationships?” So if you’re playing along at home, we have three different independent variables here, epinephrine or placebo (two levels), information about the shot (three levels), angry or euphoric (two levels), for eighteen different research categories. What the researchers were really interested in here was not vision as the participants were told, but rather, the happiness or anger the participants experienced going through the study. These were measured through observations of the participant’s behavior and a survey at the end of the study. Imagining you’re a participant in this study, you’ve got a couple of different sources of information. Are you having a physiological reaction to the epinephrine? Were you accurately informed what that reaction would feel like? Is the person in the room with you angry or happy? Most interesting to me is the group who received a shot and didn’t know what it would do. This is the group that I would expect to be most likely to take on the emotions of the stooge. They are having a mild, emotion-like physiological response, and were not expecting it. To explain that reaction, they might look to their environment. Indeed, that’s what happened. Participants who had been uninformed or even misinformed about how their body would react to the shot were more likely to become happy when the stooge was happy and angry when the stooge was angry. In the euphoric condition, they joined in on the fun and even engaged in some entertaining activities the stooge wasn’t engaging in. Plus, they just said they were happier on a self-report scale. For anger, similar findings. If they did not know what the impact of the shot would be, they got angry along with the stooge. I like to think about this study in terms of Sarah’s story above. While no one at the show was given shots of epinephrine that day, there was undoubtedly some elevated tension and anxiety associated with being in public and in a crowded space. Many of those patrons probably were having a physiological reaction consistent with an epinephrine burst simply because they were nervous about being out. Did they recognize that or did they attribute it to the frustration of what they considered unreasonable masking policies? Did they pick up on the anger of their fellow theater-goers* in the same way participants picked up on the anger of the stooges? TIP When you are angry or around someone who is angry, pay attention to the things going on around you, even those that might seem irrelevant, that could be influencing that anger.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  They decide their needs are more important than the needs of others. When a waiter is slower than they would like, they might respond with “I don’t care what he is doing, he needs to get over here.”Other-directed shoulds: A variation on demandingness, other-directed shoulds are when people have strict beliefs about the ways that people should act. These rules may be consistent or inconsistent with the rules other people have (such as people should say please and thank you, people should never be late to a meeting). When people violate those rules, people get especially angry.* The driving situation above was a good example of these sorts of other-directed shoulds.Expectations of changed behaviors: This occurs when people expect others will change in order to meet their expectations. They think their co-workers, friends, and family will change their behavior just for them. When people don’t change for them in the way they expect, they get angry.Jumping to conclusions: Angry people often jump to negative conclusions without adequate evidence for their position. They might assume negative intentions from people without a good reason to make that assumption. When their boss asks them for a meeting, for example, they might jump to the idea that they are going to be given more work.Personalization: This is when people make events about themselves that are really not about them. They essentially take things personally, assuming that people did things with them in mind. In the case of anger, they might decide that a person’s actions were motivated by spite or revenge. “They did that just to get back at me.”All-or-Nothing Thinking I’ve been the target of a lot of anger on social media lately because of my position on American gun violence. I’m a staunch and outspoken advocate for increased gun regulation in the United States and I discuss it often on social media.* Something interesting happens when I do this, though, that speaks to a particular thought style common among angry people. Inevitably, gun enthusiasts attack me for wanting to “ban guns” – they say things like, “Good luck taking my guns from me,” “If you ban guns only criminals will have them,” or even “How about we ban cars too since those kill even more people than guns.” What makes this such an odd response, though, is that I’ve never advocated the banning of all guns and I’ve never talked about confiscating guns. They hear “gun regulation” – which can mean anything from requiring that guns be locked away to requiring additional training to own a gun – and they translate it in their minds into the banning and confiscating of all guns. They end up responding to this idea instead of what I am actually advocating. This is the sort of all-or-nothing thinking that really drives the worldviews of many angry people.