"Dad, what is this sieve called "worthlessness"?
  Is it like ours, to make things fine, yes?"

"Where on earth did you hear that?
  From that old school, that's my guess."

"No. From this old book I found in the bin.
  It's got lots of pages, they're all about sin."

"A sieve, son, refines out what isn't required,
  To keep what is best, what is most desired."

"It says, "to swing the nations, to and fro",
  The prophet Isaiah wrote it, didn't you know?"

"Well, you read it son, you'll soon work it out.
  I've got enough troubles to worry about."

"I'll read it to you Dad, if you'll just wait,
  It's in Isaiah chapter thirty, verse twenty-eight.

"It's about God sifting people to where they fit,
  Nations     to leave the wrongdoers inside of it."

"Are we a worthless nation, as I've heard you say?
  Will we fall through this sieve, or will we stay?

  I mean, who else could it be used for, Dad,
  If not for everyone, the good and the bad?"

"It refines out the worthless by how they lived,
  From those being sanctified through His sieve."

                                                              11/6/86.