This evening the last bag of stuff got emptied, sorted and put away -at least enough for me to say I have now opened and emptied every bag and box that moved here.  Yes, there is stuff that lives in boxes/crates such as craft equipment, face paints etc, and there is a whole massive pile of old services to be recycled (as in the paper sent for recycling not re-used here!  I have 95% on disc so if I ever did want to re-use them I could) but I can now see floor in all rooms.

After five years of living with a spare church in my house, at the moment I have a spare kitchen in my kitchen (white goods from store to a flat with integated appliances) but once they have been rehomed and the removers have taken away their boxes it will feel like a real home.

A week on Saturday is the grand manse warming, to which Millie Mole (my puppet) has invited all her friends, so between now and then I have to hang pictures, shuffle CDs into order and child proof the breakables.  All good fun.

This morning I was doing an e-search of the 'Good News Bible' to find verses that contained 'child' or 'children'.  Imagine my horror when I landed on Proverbs 22:15 and it was rendered thus:

Children just naturally do silly, careless things, but a good spanking will teach them how to behave. (GNB)

This isn't just bad translation, its very scary interpretation.  So, I was distracted into a time of web-trawling, using Bible Gateway to check other translations, trying to find out just what the 'rod of disicpline' might have been or meant and finding some highly disturbing far right American Christian websites along the way - one even telling you what size of 'switch' you needed for a baby under a year old. Very scary indeed.

Most Bible translations opt for something such as

Young people are prone to foolishness and fads; the cure comes through tough-minded discipline. (The Message)

or

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from them. (NIV)

Several online commentators see the 'rod of discipline' as figurative, one comparing it to the 'long arm of the law.'  Those who see it as literal, and even those who see it as allied to corporal punishment, see its referent as 'grown up children' and note that since we don't stone our wilfully children to death (Deuteronomy 21) why would we spank them?

'Firm discipline' and 'tough love' are one thing, violence against children is another and we do well to beware any bad translations that tell us to 'spank' when the intent is otherwise.

Then there's Proverbs 23:13-14 too often cited as 'a good spanking never killed anyone'... if the rod in this context can't kill then it clearly isn't a 'good spanking' that is being alluded to.  The GNB sacrily renders this verse as

Don't hesitate to disicpline children.  A good spanking won't kill them.

Well actually yes it might, and alas plenty of news reports show it does.  Better is the CEV which says

Don't fail to correct your children. You won't kill them by being firm, and it may even save their lives. (CEV)

Anyway, enough of the Bad-News Good-News Bible - I have to find some useful passages for next week.

(NB this post corrected due to earlier error)