2
THE LORD
ON
THE
WAY
TO
BETHSAIDA
1. M
EETING THE CARAVAN FROM
D
AMASCUS
OW
we will return to ourselves, and see – but also as brief as possible – about our experiences from the time weleft Aphek. [2]When we were at a distance of about 2 hours walking from thefirst mentioned city, we met a very big business caravan that camefrom Damascus and was going to the coastal cities to sell theirproducts there. [3]However, when the caravan came instead of the bare region,which was well known to them, into the now flourishing, blessedregion, they did not know their way anymore and thought theygot lost.[4]When we arrived at the caravan,
the leader of the caravan
came to Me because I was walking in front and the disciplesfollowed Me, and he asked Me:“Look, good friend, we arebusinessmen from Damascus and we go to the coastal cities twicea year because we easily can well sell our products over there. Wealways take the road passing through Aphek, Golan, Abila, Pellaand Gennesaret, and thus we well know the way. We impossiblycould have been mistaken in taking a different road up to here, andwe should be close to Aphek by now so that we should be able toreach it in a couple of hours. However, we know the bare regionwherein the old city is located. That started from here where theroad is very bumpy and goes through those black basalt rocks, andthen we knew that we were in the neighborhood of our restingplace for the night.[5] But just look, this is no more a bare region. Everything isgreen, and along the way there are groups of all kinds of fruit treeswhile not even half year ago, when we came along this way, wehardly could see here and there a languishing thornbush. So,although we know this road for already so long we must havetaken a wrong way somewhere, and now we do not know where
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