Betrayal had fulfilled the prophecy.
Too proud for penance and too weak to run,
he strung himself up from a cedar tree
and swayed for days beneath a scathing sun.
Thieves cut his desiccated body free,
then left it in the dust. Throughout that night,
Jerusalem kept shuddering with light.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
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Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
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