Verse of the Day for March 29

The Preacher turns to worship and gives advice that would empty most prayer meetings: keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools.

Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.

The reason he gives is geographical rather than moral. God is in heaven and you are on earth. It is not that talking is wrong; it is that the asymmetry should be audible in how you speak.

And the verse after it is one of the funniest in scripture: a dream cometh through the multitude of business, and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.

Plenty of praying is nervous filling — talking to avoid a silence in which something might be said to us.

Few is not the same as cold. It is what you say when you actually expect to be heard.

A short prayer said once, meant, and then left alone is a stronger act of faith than the same request restated forty ways.

Say it. Then stop, and stay in the room.