So many thoughts crowd my brain and, above all, Miriam's message.

I can get no rest until I have delivered it--so listen now." Hosea nodded assent and, after drinking the healing potion handed to him, Ephraim began: "Miriam the daughter of Amram and Jochebed greets the son of Nun the Ephraimite.

Thy name is Hosea, 'the Help,' and the Lord our God hath chosen thee to be the helper of His people.

But henceforward, by His command, thou shalt be called Joshua,--[Jehoshua, he who helps Jehova]--the help of Jehovah; for through Miriam's lips the God of her fathers, who is the God of thy fathers likewise, bids thee be the sword and buckler of thy people.

In Him dwells all power, and he promises to steel thine arm that He may smite the foe." Ephraim had begun in a low voice, but gradually his tones grew more resonant and the last words rang loudly and solemnly through the stillness of the night.
Thus had Miriam uttered them, laying her hands on the lad's head and gazing earnestly into his face with eyes deep and dark as night, and while repeating them he had felt as though some secret power were constraining him to shout them aloud to Hosea, just as he had heard them from the lips of the prophetess.