Hear our Cries!

00:00:00 Speaker 1: The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them. He delivers them from all their troubles Psalm thirty four seventeen. Dear Lord, you are the God who hears when we cry out in pain and fear. You listen with compassion and respond with love in our moments of despair. Remind us that we are never alone. You draw near to the broken hearted and lift those crushed in spirit. We place our trust in your mercy, knowing that your deliverance comes at the perfect time. Strengthen our faith. Lord, when waiting feels long and hope seems faint, fill us with peace that surpasses understanding. Let your presence calm our anxious hearts and renew our strength. Each day, guide us through every trial, and lead us toward healing and restoration. We praise you for your steadfast love that never fails. May our lives testify to your faithfulness and grace. Amen, Thank you for praying with me today. You're listening to the Chosen People. Remain here for a dramatic story inspired by the Bible. Don't forget to download the Prey dot Com app to deepen your daily walk with God. Thank you for praying with me today. You're listening to the Chosen People. Remain here for a dramatic story inspired by the Bible. Be sure to leave a review and share your journey of faith today. 00:01:48 Speaker 2: Previously on the Chosen People. As the twelve sons of Jacob departed from this life and new generations sprouted from their branches, so did the line of Pharaoh. The king, who once considered Joseph a brother and the Hebrews his kin passed. His son took the throne vaguely remembering the promises made to Israel. But when his son came after him, the promises eroded into whispers. Soon the name of Joseph was forgotten. In its place the legacy of Pharaohs, the image of Ra, the might of the Nile. The storehouses were replaced with monuments to their greatness, and the children of Israel were no longer favored in the land. From the heights of his palace, Rameses the First looked down upon the multitudes of Israel with a hard gripped by suspicion and rage. 00:02:51 Speaker 3: Send the truths to Ghosi, Surround them with swords, whips and spears, seize the property their weapons, and make. 00:03:02 Speaker 4: A degree. 00:03:04 Speaker 3: The Israelites are no longer guests in my land. 00:03:09 Speaker 5: From this day forth, they shall be bricks laid at the foundation of my empire. I am Pharaoh, the image of Rah. 00:03:20 Speaker 3: I am the Lion, the serpent, the King. If any oppose my degree, they shall feel the sponge of my burning fury. 00:03:34 Speaker 2: The cruel Pharaoh who enslaved the Rameses the first had passed. The Israelite scars told the tale of his legacy, a legacy of brutality, conquest, and oppression. His son Setti took his place. Both drank from the same well of hatred and pride as their forbears. 00:04:00 Speaker 6: Caution will weep with the wails of mothers, as I tell their sons from their breasts. 00:04:09 Speaker 4: Take every sun under the age of two, and cast them into the nile. 00:04:15 Speaker 5: The crocodiles will feast on their flesh, and the waters will turn crimson, as a symbol of My power over them. 00:04:26 Speaker 6: Remember your promises, oh God, most time, Remember your chosen people. 00:04:40 Speaker 2: The sun sank low over the dunes, casting a blood red hue across the sprawling sands of Egypt. In the distance, the great pyramids stood as silent sentinels against the fading sky, their shadowed faces watching over the living and the dead alike. The River Nile, that dark artery of life, winding its way through the kingdom, ran crimson under the dying light, like a wound stretched across the earth. It was on this day that Pharaoh SETI, lord of the Two Lands, god King of the Nile, would be laid to rest in his stone sepulcher beneath the sands. His body was carried by the hands of priests and mourners, already embalmed in layers of linen soaked in murh and natron. Rameses stood at the head of the funeral procession, his gaze fixed on the horizon where ra bled into the world beyond. His Robes of Carnelian and gold flowed around him like a burning flame, and the ureus of the cobra coiled at his brow. The priests chanted hymns in the sacred tongue, their voices rising and falling like the whispering winds that swept across the desert. The air was thick with incense, the cloying smell of frankincense and sandalwood mingling with the musk of the embalming spices that still clung to his father's shrouded corpse. Seti's body lay upon a bier of cedar and ivory, borne aloft on the shoulders of his chosen servants, who would be sacrificed and buried with him. His face, shrouded in the golden death mask, looked as though he were merely asleep. His lips were set in a serene, knowing smile that Ramses had come to despise. As a boy, Ramses hated his father. He hated his cold, distant voice and the way he refused to look him in the eye. But as a man, Ramses had turned his hatred into ambition. He wanted to be greater than Seti. He wanted his reign to be the greatest offering that gods had ever seen. A low murmur rippled through the gathered nobles, courtiers, and soldiers. They stood in clusters, their eyes shifting from the deceased pharaoh to his son. Knowing that Egypt would soon belong to Rameses, the priests raised their voices, calling upon Anubis, the jackal headed guide of souls, to shepherds Setti to the after life. The acolytes lit torches and waved them in solemn circles, casting eerie, dancing shadows on the sandstone walls of the tomb, which gaped open like the moor of some great beast. The gods were watching tonight, all of them. Rameses stepped forward, his footsteps heavy upon the stone. He had no need for his father's smile. He had his father's strength, his father's cruelty. His own eyes were cold and hard, like chips of flint. The Hebrews, he thought, were a tool, a means to an end, if his father had thrown their children into the river. But Rameses found this shortsighted. He wanted to use them to build up his greatness. Ramses would turn their men into the mortar for his monuments. Egypt would be built upon their bones. The beer halted at the mouth of the tomb, where the high priest Nebberman awaited, his face painted in the black and gold of the afterlife. The slithery man raised his arms. 00:08:38 Speaker 5: He oh, sexy. 00:08:42 Speaker 7: Bar of Egypt, who sits at. 00:08:47 Speaker 2: The right hand of the guards. 00:08:50 Speaker 3: His car shall jerve. 00:08:52 Speaker 7: Beyond the fields of reeds. His bar shall sore among the stars. Let his enemies tremble, for he has crossed the river to return alone. 00:09:10 Speaker 2: Rameses almost scoffed eternal life. What use was eternity to a man who had spent his days scheming in the shadows of his own palace. He stepped forward again, this time alone, and placed his hand upon the bier, his fingers tracing the intricate carvings of falcons and lotus blossoms. 00:09:32 Speaker 3: Further. You built this kingdom with blood and tire, but it is I. 00:09:40 Speaker 2: Who shall make it the more dat The priests moved forward, then, guiding the beer into the darkness of the tomb. Torches sputtered as they passed, their light flickering like souls caught between worlds. Rameses watched as his father disappeared into the belly of the earth. The ran at doors of the tomb were both shut, ceiling with a deep, resonant boom. It was done. Pharaoh Setti was no more. Ramses stepped out of the darkness and into the fading light of dusk. A gust of wind swept over the procession, sending a chill through the air, and the torches hissed and spat. Ramses turned to face his people. His gaze swept over the crowd, from the nobles in their silks and jewels, to the slaves in their rags, and he saw in their eyes what he had always seen, fear, fear of change, fear of death, fear of him. And he would use that fear, shape it, mold it into something greater than his father had ever dreamed. He raised his hands, and silence fell like a curtain over the crowd. 00:10:59 Speaker 4: Behald, no father, he had answers Sea set him the unite of her. 00:11:08 Speaker 3: Shaws and mother gods, to lead you into a new work, an age of power, Oh Lord at age, when. 00:11:18 Speaker 4: Egypts had been the envy of the world, where the laws of us. 00:11:24 Speaker 5: CIEs were rivehigh the heaven. 00:11:27 Speaker 4: Hello, name or tramp only more us. 00:11:33 Speaker 2: The crowd irrupted into a roar of cheers. Rameses stood amidst it all, his face a mask of stone, his heart beating with the rhythm of the drums that began to pound in celebration. He had taken the first step, and there would be no turning back. The priests began to chant again, invoking the names of the gods, and the people fell to their knees before their new pharaoh, Ramses, looked out over them and smiled, not with the serene smile of his father, but with the sharp, hungry grin of a lion who had tasted blood yet. At the edges of the great procession, hidden among the rocks and scrub two figures watched with eyes that did not see a new age of glory, but one of suffering. They were Aaron and Miriam, children born of Jokabed and Amram, the unknown siblings of the sincexiled Prince Moses. Aaron's eyes were like flints in the dying light. He watched as the nobles paraded before their new pharaoh, bowing and scraping like dogs waiting for scraps. Miriam clutched her tattered shawl around her thin shoulders, her lips moving silently in prayer or perhaps in a curse. It was hard to tell. The years of toil had aged them both beyond their time. 00:13:06 Speaker 4: Did you see his eyes, They're as cold as stones? Said he was cruel, But this one, this one is ambitious. He will not be satisfied with what his father built. You want more, you want everything. 00:13:23 Speaker 2: Aaron spat into the dust, a gesture of contempt. But also of fear. Miriam's dark eyes were fixed on Rameses, who now stood at the head of the procession. The Hebrews had suffered under Setti's rule, but there had been moments of peace, moments when the whip was lowered and the labor eased. Rameses, though there was a hunger in him, a lust for power that went beyond the throne. 00:13:51 Speaker 6: Our burden will grow heavier. 00:13:53 Speaker 2: I feel it in my bones. 00:13:56 Speaker 6: He will use us until we break, and then he will grind our bones to dust to make more pitch. He is not a man who will be content with mere servitude. He will bleed us dry. 00:14:11 Speaker 4: What do we do. We can't fight him, we can't flee. Where do we turn? 00:14:17 Speaker 2: Miriam took a deep breath, her shoulders heaving with the weight of years. 00:14:27 Speaker 6: We turned to the god of our fathers, to the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the god who promised us a land of our own. We've been here too long. Perhaps it is time we remember who we are and who we were meant to be. 00:14:44 Speaker 4: And we must tell others. Tonight will gather in the hills of Goshen. We'll pray, we'll cry out and perhaps the God who spared Isaac will spare us too. 00:14:56 Speaker 2: As they turned away from the processions fading light, Aaron felt a flicker of something deep within him, something like hope tempered with the hard edge of desperation. The burden was coming. He knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the desert sky. The days that followed Ramsay's ascent to the throne were like a lash upon the backs of the Hebrews. The sun beat down upon them with a cruel intensity, and the taskmasters, drunk on their new Pharaoh's ambition, drove the slaves harder than ever before. Whips cracked like thunder, and the cries of the afflicted filled the air. The hands of the Hebrews bled war from the endless toil. Each night, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the stars blinked awake, they would gather in the hills of Goshen, old men and young mothers with babes and arms, all drawn by a need for deliverance. Aaron would stand among them, his voice rising above the low mum is, his words like a forge hammer upon a nandvil. 00:16:15 Speaker 4: Look at what they do to us Look at how they grind us into dust, how they treat us like beasts of burden. But we are we not beasts. We are the children of Israel, the children of promise. We must pray like those who remember who they are. 00:16:35 Speaker 3: What's the use there? 00:16:36 Speaker 5: And God most High has forgotten us, Maybe he's fallen asleep after all these years. 00:16:43 Speaker 6: Then let us shout to wake him. Do you not remember the stories of our fathers? Do you remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who led our father Abraham out of earth to the promised land. We must remember our birthright. 00:17:01 Speaker 2: And they would pray each night, their voices rising like a storm wind over the sands. Some called out with words of ancient songs. Others wept silent tears, but all of them felt the weight of their cries filling the heavens. 00:17:18 Speaker 4: Oh, God of our fathers, hear us, See the suffering of your chosen people. See how we are crushed beneath the heel of Pharaoh. Send us deliverer, lift us out of this bondage. 00:17:37 Speaker 2: The people would cry out after him, voices mingling in a desperate chorus that echoed through the hills. And as they prayed, the stars seemed to shine brighter, as if the heavens themselves were bending low to listen. But there was no answer, not yet, only the stillness of the desert night and the days and endless hiss of the nile flowed like the blood of a great wound. One night, after the prayers had ended and the people began to drift back to their hovels, Miriam turned to Aaron, her faith drawn with worry. 00:18:16 Speaker 6: How long, brother, how long must we cry out before God hears us? I fear for our people. I fear we are near the breaking point. 00:18:28 Speaker 4: I don't know, Miriam, to be honest, I know very little about the God of our ancestors. I remember remnants of stories passed down. But who is he? When was the last time he spoke to us and moved for us? I don't even know his name. How can we honestly pray to him without? Without even knowing his name? 00:18:50 Speaker 2: In the weeks that followed, the burdens only grew heavier. The taskmasters seemed to delight in their cruelty and ramses from his palace of marble and gold, decreed more monuments, more temples, more blood and sweat from the Hebrew's backs. The cries of the slaves grew more desperate, and every night in the hills their prayers rose like a whale, A plea, a demand. Songs for deliverance fell upon the dust and pitch they worked in. Desperately, they sang to their God, appealing the promises he made their ancestors. The stars above seemed fixed in their indifference, and the nile flowed on, dark and unyielding. And yet in the hearts of Aaron and Miriam, a flicker of hope remained. For they knew that somewhere beyond the veil of the scene and the unseen, beyond the power of pharaohs and the gods of Egypt, there was a God who listened, a God who remembered. And somewhere in the desert, the sands began to shift. This Prey dot com production is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Katina, Max Bard, Zach Shellabarger, and Ben Gammon are the executive producers of The Chosen People, narrated by Paul Coltofianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotton, Aaron Salvato, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwald, Sylvia Zaradoc, Thomas Copeland Junior, Rosanna Pilcher, and Mitch Leshinsky. Music by Andrew Morgan Smith, written by Aaron Salvato, bre Rosalie and Chris Baig. You can hear more Prey dot com productions on the Prey dot Com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed the Chosen People, please rate and leave a review,