THE STORYTELLER'S BIBLE
Act V, Scene 5
Script by Bob Allen
For four voices
                                                                     1         3
                                                                            2                           4

VOICE TWO: (STAND AND MOVE TO CENTER) Oh, Hannah! Guess what. My husband is going to build me a house. He has all the plans ready and he told me just last night.

VOICE FOUR: Miriam had gone to the marketplace that day just to find someone with whom she could share her news. Hannah was the first person she met, but she knew Hannah would be excited because they had been talking about building a house for years.

VOICE TWO: We’ll be neighbors. He’s going to build by the brook Kidron, right next to that hole in the ground where your husband has been digging for months.

VOICE ONE: Hannah just smiled. Her husband had been digging for weeks, but he had come to bedrock and now the foundations were being laid. It would take even more time before they could start on the walls, but they both believed that was for the best in the long run.

VOICE THREE: Three weeks later, when Hannah’s husband had just finished the first row of bricks for the walls of their house, Miriam and her family were ready to move.

VOICE TWO: Oh, it’s so exciting. Your husband should have done like mine and just built on top of the ground. It was so much faster. And we were able to do so many things with the money we saved. Hebought me all new furniture and we landscaped and everything.

VOICE FOUR: Two months later the friends became neighbors as Hannah’s house was finally complete. The two houses looked very much alike on the outside. Oh, Miriam’s house had a few touches that Hannah’shusband hadn’t been able to afford. But to look at them you couldn’t tell anything at all about the foundations.

VOICE ONE: Then, about one week after Hannah and her family had moved—

VOICE THREE: The storm raged all night. Torrents of rain fell in the Judean hills and began to sweep down every available wadi. The brook Kidron rose slowly at first, then wildly, swelling out of its banks and swirling violently around everything that stood in its way.

VOICE FOUR: As the flood of water raged down the valley, the houses of Miriam and Hannah stood right in its path. The driving rain and vehement winds drove against the shutters and the roof. Soon the sand began to seep from under the walls of Miriam’s brand new house. Then, with a great crash, the walls fell over and the entire house was washed away by the flood.

VOICE ONE: Just a story, until they remembered what Jesus had said. “Every one who comes to Me, and hears My words, and acts upon them, I will show you whom he is like.”

VOICE THREE: The ultimate evaluation of the life we live will be based entirely on how consistently we obeyed the Word of God.

VOICE TWO: Just a story, but those who listened were expected to see themselves in the narrative. (RETURN TO STOOL.)