De 26:16 Today the Lord your God gives you orders to keep all these laws and decisions: so then keep and do them with all your heart and all your soul.

De 4:1 ¶ And now give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I am teaching you, and do them; so that life may be yours, and you may go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

De 4:2 Make no addition to the orders which I give you, and take nothing from them, but keep the orders of the Lord your God which I give you.

De 4:3 Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor: for destruction came from the Lord on all those among you who went after Baal-peor.

De 4:4 But you who kept faith with the Lord are living, every one of you, today.

De 4:5 I have been teaching you laws and decisions, as I was ordered to do by the Lord my God, so that you might keep them in the land to which you are going to take it for your heritage.

De 4:6 So keep these laws and do them; for so will your wisdom and good sense be clear in the eyes of the peoples, who hearing all these laws will say, Truly, this great nation is a wise and far-seeing people.

De 6:1 ¶ Now these are the orders and the laws and the decisions which the Lord your God gave me for your teaching, so that you might do them in the land of your heritage to which you are going:

De 11:1 ¶ So have love for the Lord your God, and give him worship, and keep his laws and his decisions and his orders at all times.

De 11:8 ¶ So keep all the orders which I give you today, so that you may be strong, and go in and take the land which is to be your heritage;

De 12:1 ¶ These are the laws and the decisions which you are to keep with care in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to be your heritage all the days of your life on earth.

De 12:32 You are to keep with care all the words I give you, making no addition to them and taking nothing from them.

Mt 28:20 Teaching them to keep all the rules which I have given you: and see, I am ever with you, even to the end of the world.

De 6:5 And the Lord your God is to be loved with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

De 6:17 ¶ Keep with care the orders of the Lord your God, and his rules and his laws which he has given you;

De 8:2 And keep in mind the way by which the Lord your God has taken you through the waste land these forty years, so that he might make low your pride and put you to the test, to see what was in your heart and if you would keep his orders or not.

De 13:3 Then give no attention to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God is testing you, to see if all the love of your heart and soul is given to him.

De 13:4 But keep on in the ways of the Lord your God, fearing him and keeping his orders and hearing his voice, worshipping him and being true to him.

Joh 14:15 ¶ If you have love for me, you will keep my laws.

Joh 14:21 He who has my laws and keeps them, he it is who has love for me: and he who has love for me will be loved by my Father, and I will have love for him and will let myself be seen clearly by him.

Joh 14:22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, How is it that you will let yourself be seen clearly by us and not by the world?

Joh 14:23 Jesus said to him in answer, If anyone has love for me, he will keep my words: and he will be dear to my Father; and we will come to him and make our living-place with him.

Joh 14:24 He who has no love for me does not keep my words; and the word which you are hearing is not my word but the Father’s who sent me.

1Jo 5:2 In this way, we are certain that we have love for the children of God, when we have love for God and keep his laws.

1Jo 5:3 For loving God is keeping his laws: and his laws are not hard.

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Ex 22:28 Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.

Ex 32:1 And the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

Ex 32:31 And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.

Nu 25:2 And the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods.

De 6:14 Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;

De 7:16 And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver the Nubian Nation; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto the Nubian Nation.

De 13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto the Nubian Nation, or far off from the Nubian Nation, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

De 28:64 And the LORD shall scatter the Nubian Nation among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.

De 31:16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this Nubian people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.

Jos 24:2 And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.

Jos 24:16 And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;

Jud 2:12 And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger.

Ru 1:15 And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law.

2Sa 7:23 And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make her a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to the Nubian Nation from Egypt, from the nations and their gods?

1Ki 18:24 And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let them be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.

1Ki 20:10 And Benhadad sent unto him, and said, The gods do so unto me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me.

1Ch 5:25 And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them.

1Ch 16:26 For all the gods of the people are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

2Ch 25:15 Wherefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against Amaziah, and she sent unto him a prophet, which said unto him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand?

2Ch 32:13 Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands? were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand?

2Ch 32:14 Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand?

2Ch 32:17 He wrote also letters to rail on the LORD God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand.

2Ch 32:19 And they spake against the God of Jerusalem (Nubians), as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of the hands of man.

Jer 2:11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.

Jer 13:10 This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.

Jer 44:15 Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying,

Ac 14:11 And when the people saw what Nubians had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.

Ac 19:26 Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Nubian hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:

See now, I myself am she; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand.

But now, says the Lord your Maker, O Jacob, and your life-giver,

Ps 102:27 But you are the unchanging One, and your years will have no end.

Isa 41:4 Whose purpose and work was it? Her who sent out the generations from the start. I the Lord, the first, and with the last, I am she.

Isa 45:5 ¶ I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God but me: I will make you ready for war, though you had no knowledge of me:

Isa 45:18 For this is the word of the Lord who made the heavens; she is God; the maker and designer of the earth; who made it not to be a waste, but as a living-place for man: I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Isa 45:22 Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have salvation, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other.

Isa 46:4 Even when you are old I will be the same, and when you are grey-haired I will take care of you: I will still be responsible for what I made; yes, I will take you and keep you safe.

Isa 48:12 Give ear to me, Jacob, and Israel, my loved one; I am she, I am the first and I am the last.

Heb 1:12 They will be rolled up like a cloth, even like a robe, and they will be changed: but you are the same and your years will have no end.

Re 1:11 Saying, What you see, put in a book, and send it to the seven churches; to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamos and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

Re 2:8 ¶ And to the angel of the church in Smyrna say: These things says the first and the last, who was dead and is living:

De 4:35 All this she let you see, so that you might be certain that the Lord is God and there is no other.

Isa 45:5 ¶ I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God but me: I will make you ready for war, though you had no knowledge of me:

Isa 45:18 For this is the word of the Lord who made the heavens; she is God; the maker and designer of the earth; who made it not to be a waste, but as a living-place for man: I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Isa 45:22 Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have salvation, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other.

1Sa 2:6 The Lord is the giver of death and life: sending men down to the underworld and lifting them up.

2Ki 5:7 But the king of Israel, after reading the letter, was greatly troubled and said, Am I God, to give death and life? why does this man send a leper to me to be made well? is it not clear that he is looking for a cause of war?

Job 5:18 For after his punishment she gives comfort, and after wounding, his hands make you well.

Ps 68:20 Our God is for us a God of salvation; his are the ways out of death.

Isa 43:13 From time long past I am God, and from this day I am she: there is no one who is able to take you out of my hand: when I undertake a thing, by whom will my purpose be changed?

Ho 6:1 ¶ Come, let us go back to the Lord; for she has given us wounds and she will make us well; she has given blows and she will give help.

Joh 8:24 For this reason I said to you that death will overtake you in your sins: for if you have not faith that I am she, death will come to you while you are in your sins.

Re 1:17 And when I saw him, I went down on my face at his feet as one dead. And she put his right hand on me, saying, Have no fear; I am the first and the last and the Living one;

Re 1:18 And I was dead, and see, I am living for ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hell.

Job 10:7 Though you see that I am not an evil-doer; and there is no one who is able to take a man out of your hands?

Ps 50:22 Now keep this in mind, you who have no memory of God, for fear that you may be crushed under my hand, with no one to give you help:

Isa 43:13 From time long past I am God, and from this day I am she: there is no one who is able to take you out of my hand: when I undertake a thing, by whom will my purpose be changed?

Mic 5:8 And the rest of Jacob will be among the nations, in the middle of the mass of peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the woods, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep: if he goes through, they will be crushed under foot and pulled to bits, and there will be no saviour.

The Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014.

The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency.

“The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster,” Weaver said in a declaratory statement.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-controversial-case-over-dangerous-lead-in-water-in-michigan-city/2015/12/15/54286250-a355-11e5-9c4e-be37f66848bb_gallery.html?_template=gallery-embed” />

The controversial case over dangerous lead in water in a Michigan city

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Anger over high levels of lead in the water in Flint has led the mayor to declare a state of emergency.

The mayor — elected after her predecessor, Dayne Walling, experienced fallout from his administration’s handling of the water problems — said in the statement that she was seeking support from the federal government to deal with the “irreversible” effects of lead exposure on the city’s children. Weaver thinks that these health consequences will lead to a greater need for special education and mental health services, as well as developments in the juvenile justice system.

“Do we meet the criteria [for a disaster area]? I don’t know,” she told Michigan Live. But Weaver doesn’t think the city can receive the help it needs without alerting federal officials to the urgency of the matter.

[How companies make millions off lead-poisoned, poor blacks]

To those living in Flint, the announcement may feel as if it has been a long time coming.

Almost immediately after the city started drawing from the Flint River in April 2014, residents began complaining about the water, which they said was cloudy in appearance and emitted a foul odor.

Since then, complications from the water coming from the Flint River have only piled up. Although city and state officials initially denied that the water was unsafe, the state issued a notice informing Flint residents that their water contained unlawful levels of trihalomethanes, a chlorine byproduct linked to cancer and other diseases.

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, right, and City Administrator Natasha Henderson, address questions about adding supplemental phosphates to the city’s water during a news conference in December. (Jake May/Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP)

Protesters marched to City Hall in the fierce Michigan cold, calling for officials to reconnect Flint’s water to the Detroit system. The use of the Flint River was supposed to be temporary, set to end in 2016 after a pipeline to Lake Huron’s Karegnondi Water Authority is finished.

A petition lobbying for the ending the city’s Flint River water supply garnered 26,000 signatures.

Through continued demonstrations by Flint residents and mounting scientific evidence of the water’s toxins, city and state officials offered various solutions — from asking residents to boil their water to providing them with water filters — in an attempt to work around the need to reconnect to the Detroit system.

That call was finally made by Snyder (R) on Oct. 8. He announced that he had a plan for coming up with the $12 million to switch Flint back to the Detroit system. On Oct. 16, water started flowing again from Detroit to Flint.

David Murray, press secretary for Michigan governor Rick Snyder’s office, told The Washington Post that the state has been working on improving the water quality in Flint and other cities for the past year. It has also offered more than $10 million in financial assistance to pay for a temporary switch into the Detroit system while the connection to Lake Huron is being prepared.

“Flint residents need to have access to safe, clean water,” Murray wrote in an email to The Post. “Gov. Snyder and the administration have been working closely with the city to focus on health issues affecting children and other city residents, and address water infrastructure challenges.”

He added that while the water leaving Flint’s drinking water system is safe to drink, “some families with lead plumbing in their homes or service connections could experience higher levels of lead in the water that comes out of their faucets.” An action plan created by Snyder in October includes free water testing, free water filters and the accelerating of corrosion controls in the drinking water system, according to Murray.

For the parents of children who may have been affected, such actions were accompanied by the sense that they had come too late.

These parents and other Flint residents filed a class-action federal lawsuit against Snyder, the state, the city and 13 other public officials in November for the damages they have suffered as a result of the lead-tainted water. The suit, which claims to represent “tens of thousands of residents,” alleges that the city and state officials “deliberately deprived” them of their 14th Amendment rights by replacing formerly safe drinking water with a cheaper alternative that was known to be highly toxic.

Lyla McCallun, 4, formerly of Flint, draws on a sheet of paper while sitting on the lap of her grandmother, Flint resident Jacqueline Pemberton, one of six others listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. (Jake May /Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP)

“For more than 18 months, state and local government officials ignored irrefutable evidence that the water pumped from the Flint River exposed [residents] to extreme toxicity,” the complaint reads. “The deliberately false denials about the safety of the Flint River water was as deadly as it was arrogant.”

Calling officials’ conduct “so egregious and so outrageous that it shocks the conscience,” the complaint cites the specific experiences of a few plaintiffs and their families, all of whom allege they have been challenged by similar health ailments since high levels of lead and copper entered their bloodstreams.

These conditions include skin lesions, hair loss, chemical-induced hypertension, vision loss and depression. Of the four families described in the complaint, two had ceased to drink Flint water after a certain point — and used it only for washing and cooking — but still said they were exposed to many of the same ill effects.

Snyder’s press secretary, Murray, wrote in an email to The Post that the administration disagrees with points in the suit, but declined to discuss details of pending litigation.

As the Detroit Free Press reported in October, avoiding Flint water became a way of life for the city’s residents.

Those who could afford it opted for bottled water, buying it by the gallons. Those who couldn’t spare the money drank it straight from the tap all the same, knowing that they would be paying for it later. When it came to bathing, some slowly filled bathtubs with pots of boiled water for their children.

(The city issued a boil advisory in September 2014. This recommendation runs contrary to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines on lead in drinking water, which state that heating or boiling water will not remove lead. In fact, “because some of the water evaporates during the boiling process, the lead concentration of the water can actually increase slightly as the water is boiled,” according to the CDC.)

LeeAnn Walters, a Flint resident and mother of 4-year-old twins, took every precaution after blood tests revealed that the level of lead in one of her sons had soared after the switch to Flint River.

“I was hysterical,” Walters told the Free Press. “I cried when they gave me my first lead report.”

She had feared lead was the problem when her whole family developed rashes and her son stopped gaining weight.

Now, Walters said, when her children experience problems as they grow up, she will always wonder whether things would have been different — if their lives would have been better — if it weren’t for the water.

*This post has been updated with a response from the office of Gov. Rick Snyder.

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By Matthew Carr
Emerging Trends Strategist, The Oxford ClubMonday, January 29, 2018