People of the Book

They had a book that other people loved,
A book that showed a way to walk in glory
By following a law. A book of stories
Succinctly told, that seemed to rise above
The moral tone of all those pagan tales
Of gods whose virtue mostly seems to fail.
The other people loved the book so much,
They took it on, but with some alterations,
Taking the form of yet more revelations,
Which somehow made it easier to clutch
Close to the heart, and less a thorny thing
To argue over endlessly - as if
Anything less would give the text short shrift.
At least that's how it seemed to them, the tribe
That owned the book - that testament of passion.
They could not go along with this new fashion
Of modifying what they had imbibed
As mother's milk. And so they stood alone,
And tried to keep the law that was their own.