不列顛的毀滅 第 4 章

CHAPTER ONE. A rebuke against Constantine. — 1. Britain has kings, but tyrants; she has judges, but impious ones, often plundering and harassing—yet the innocent; vindicating and protecting—but the guilty and the robbers; having very many wives, but harlots and adulteresses; frequently swearing, but forswearing; vowing, and almost continually lying; making war, but waging civil and unjust wars; throughout the land indeed greatly pursuing thieves, and yet those who sit with them at table they not only love but reward as robbers; giving alms lavishly, but on the other side heaping up an immense mountain of crimes;

sitting in the seat of those who are to judge, but rarely seeking the rule of right judgment; despising the harmless and humble; the bloodthirsty, the proud, the parricides, their fellow-soldiers and the adulterers, the enemies of God—if chance (as it is said) shall bring it about—(who together with that very name ought to have been zealously destroyed) they exalt as far as they can to the stars; holding many in chains in prisons, whom they crush by their own deceit rather than by their desert, loading them with chains: lingering in oaths among the altars, and a little after despising these same things as if filthy spittle. Of which so abominable a guilt the tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Damnonia, Constantine, is not ignorant. 2.

In this same year, after the dreadful oath of a solemn covenant — by which he bound himself, swearing first to God and by a lawful oath, and then in the presence of the choirs of the saints and their attendant Mother, never to work deceit upon his countrymen — within the venerable bosoms of two mothers, the Church and his fleshly mother, beneath the holy abbot's cloak, he cruelly tore the most tender sides of two royal youths, and the hearts of their two foster-fathers as well (whose arms, by no means trained to weapons — though scarcely any man of that age handled them more mightily — but stretched out toward God and the altar, shall on the day of judgment hang up at the gates of Thy city, O Christ, the venerable banners of their patience and faith), in the very midst, as I said, of the most holy altars, with sword and spear instead of teeth; so that the cloaks of, as it were, clotted purple gore touched the seat of the heavenly sacrifice.

And this he did not even after deeds worthy of praise. For many years before, overcome by the frequent and alternating stenches of adulteries, he had cast off his lawful wife against the prohibition of Christ and of the Teacher of the nations, who said: 'What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder' (Matt. 19:6; Mark 10:9); and: 'Husbands, love your wives' (Col. 3:19). For he had planted in the barren soil of his heart, in place of good seed, a most bitter shoot of unbelief and folly, like some scion of Sodom; which, watered as it were by certain poisoned showers of public and domestic impieties, and rising up ever more greedily to the offence of God, brought forth into the open the crime of parricide and sacrilege.

But, not yet freed from the snares of his former evils, he heaps new sins upon the old. Come now, I reprove you as though present, you whom I know to be still alive. Why do you stand stupefied, O butcher of your own soul? Why do you of your own will kindle for yourself the flames of hell that shall never fail? Why, in the place of enemies, do you of your own accord stab yourself with your own swords and spears? Have even the very venom-filled cups, as it were, of your crimes been unable to sate your breast? Look, I beg you, and come to Christ, since you labor and are bent down beneath an immense weight; and He Himself, as He said (Matt. 11:28), will give you rest. Come to Him who wills not the death of a sinner, but rather that he be converted and live (Ezek. 33:11). Loose, according to the prophet, the bonds of your neck, O daughter of Zion (Isa.

52:2). Return, I pray, even from the far recesses of your sins, to your most loving Father, who is wont to slay the fatted calf for the son who scorned the foul food of swine and dreaded death by dire famine and turned back to Him with joy, and to bring forth for the wandering one the first robe and the royal ring (Luke 15:13ff); and then, foretasting as it were the sweetness of heavenly hope, you will perceive how sweet is the Lord (Ps. 33:9). For if you despise these things, know that you are even now about to be whirled and burned in the inextricable and dark torrents of fire. CHAPTER II. A rebuke against Aurelius. — What of you also, as the prophet says (Ps. 16:12), you lion's whelp, Aurelius Conanus — what are you doing?

Are you not — if not in worse degree than the aforesaid — being savagely devoured by the mire of parricides, fornications, and adulteries, as though by certain rushing waves of the sea? Do you not, hating the peace of your fatherland as a deadly serpent, and thirsting for civil wars and frequent unjust plunder, shut off from your own soul the heavenly gate of peace and refreshment? Left now alone, I pray, like a tree withering in the midst of a field, recall the vain phantom of your fathers and brothers, their untimely youthful death. Will you, on account of religious merits, be spared to a hundred years, or, like a contemporary of Methuselah, survive after well-nigh all your offspring? By no means. But unless, as the Psalmist says (Ps.

7:12), you turn quickly to the Lord, that King will soon brandish His sword against you, He who through the prophet says: 'I, I will slay, and I will make alive; I will strike, and I will heal; and there is none that can deliver out of My hand' (Deut. 32:39). Wherefore shake yourself from your stinking dust (Isa. 52:2), and turn with your whole heart to Him who created you, that, when His wrath shall soon blaze forth, you may be blessed in hoping in Him (Ps. 2:12); but otherwise, eternal punishments await you, to be crushed forever cruelly and never to be consumed in the jaws of hell. CHAPTER III. A rebuke against Vortipor.

— What of you too, like the leopard in your ways and dappled with wickedness, your head already growing grey, seated on a throne full of deceits, and defiled from sole to crown with manifold parricides and adulteries — you, the worthless son of a good king, like Manasseh to Hezekiah, Vortipor, tyrant of the Demetae, why do you stand stupidly rigid? Why do not the violent whirlpools of sins, which you swallow like the choicest wine — nay, by which you are yourself devoured — fail to sate you, even as the boundary of your life draws gradually near? Why, as though it were the very pinnacle of all your evils, having put away your own wife by her honorable death, do you load your wretched soul with the rape of your shameless daughter, as with some inescapable weight? Do not consume, I beg, what remains of your days in the offence of God: for now is the acceptable time and the day of salvation (2 Cor.

6:2), shining upon the faces of the penitent, wherein you can work well, lest your flight be in winter or on the Sabbath (Matt. 24:20). Turn aside, according to the Psalmist, from evil and do good: seek good peace and follow after it (Ps. 34:14-18); for the eyes of the Lord are upon you while you do good, and His ears shall be open to your prayers, and He will not destroy your memory from the land of the living. You will cry out and He will hear you, and from all your tribulations He will deliver you. For indeed a contrite and humbled heart (Ps. 51:17), in the fear of Him, Christ never spurns. Otherwise, the worm of your gnawing shall not die, and the fire of your burning shall not be quenched (Isa. 66:24; Mark 9:44). CHAPTER VI. A rebuke against Cuneglasus.

— Why do you wallow in the old dregs of your wickedness, you too, from the years of your youth a bear, a rider of many and a charioteer of the chariot that is the bear's lair, despiser of God and His strong oppressor, Cuneglasus — in the Roman tongue, 'tawny butcher'? Why do you wage so great a strife both against men and against God: against men, that is your countrymen, with deadly arms; against God, with countless crimes? Why, besides your innumerable falls, having driven out your own wife, do you take to yourself her abominable sister, who had vowed to God perpetual chastity of widowhood, presenting herself (as the poet says) as the very summit of tenderness among the heavenly maidens, the nymphs (with all the veneration — or rather the dullness — of your mind), contrary to the prohibition of the Apostle (Gal. 5:21), who denies that adulterers can be citizens of the heavenly kingdom?

Why do you provoke the groans and sighs of the saints, who grieve bodily on your account, with frequent injuries, you who, in the manner of a monstrous lioness's teeth, will one day break your very bones? Cease, I pray, as the prophet says, from anger, and forsake the deadly fury that will waste you yourself — the fury which you breathe out against heaven and earth, that is, against God and His flock (Ps. 37:8): rather make those whom you wrong pray for you with your ways changed, those to whom belongs the power of binding above the world when they have bound the guilty in the world, and of loosing when they have loosed the penitent. Do not, as the Apostle says, be proud-minded, nor hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in God, who bestows on you many things abundantly (1 Tim.

6:17), so that by amendment of your ways you may lay up for yourself a good foundation for the future, and may have true life — life truly everlasting, not perishing. Otherwise you shall perceive, and see also how evil and bitter a thing it is to have forsaken the Lord your God, and to have no fear of Him within you (Jer. 2:19); and in the time to come, to be burned in the fearful ball of eternal fires, yet by no means to die. For the souls of the wicked are forever immortal to the fire, even as the joys of the saints are immortal. CHAPTER VII. A rebuke against Maglocunus.

— What of you too, you island dragon, expeller of many tyrants both from kingdom and from life, last of the aforesaid in my account but first in evil, greater than many in power and likewise in malice, more lavish in giving, more profuse in sin, strong in arms but stronger in the ruin of your soul, Maglocunus — why do you wallow stupidly in so old a filth of crimes, as though drunken (Jer. 23:9) with wine pressed from the Sodomite vine? Why do you of your own accord, so to speak, weave about the royal neck such inescapable masses of sins, like lofty mountains? Why do you, whom the King of all kings has made higher in kingdom than almost all the leaders of Britain — and likewise higher in stature and bodily form — show yourself worse than the others in character, when you ought rather to be better, and by a reversal turn out worse?

— hear for a little while, with even mind, the undoubted corroboration of their reproaches, leaving aside the domestic and lighter matters (if indeed any are light), and attending only to those made public, admitted far and wide through the air and bearing witness. Did you not, in the very first years of your youth, most fiercely crush your uncle the king, together with his almost bravest soldiers, whose faces in battle looked not greatly unlike the whelps of lions, with sword, spear, and fire? — little heeding the prophetic saying: 'Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their days' (Ps. 55:24). What recompense for this alone would you hope for from the just Judge, even if such things had not followed as did follow, likewise as He says through the prophet:

'Woe to you who plunder; shall you not yourself be plundered? and you who slay, shall you not yourself be slain? and when you have ceased plundering, then you shall fall' (Isa. 33:1). Was it not so, that after the phantom of violent rule had fallen to you according to your wish, and you, covered with greed, turned toward returning to the right way — and for days and nights at that time, your conscience perhaps gnawing at you for your sins, first ruminating much under your tooth concerning the godly fear and the decrees of monks, and then bringing it forth into the knowledge of public report, you vowed to become a monk, without any thought of unfaithfulness, as you said, before almighty God and angelic and human faces (having broken, as it was thought, those most capacious nets in which the fat bullocks of your size are wont to be headlong entangled:

having broken the bonds of all kingdom, of gold and silver, and — what is greater — of your own self-will), you vowed it forever; and like a deer cleaving the air mightily with, as it were, a whistling glide as the hounds slip by, and avoiding with winding twists the savage talons of the swift, snatching hawk, you carried yourself off, as a dove from a raven, to the caves of the saints, greatly faithful to you, and to their refreshments, for your salvation? O what great joy would it have been to Mother Church (had not the enemy of all mortals somehow lamentably drawn you from her bosom)!

O how abundantly the kindling of heavenly hope would have blazed in the hearts of the despairing, had you remained in good! O what manner and how great rewards of Christ's kingdom would await your soul on the day of judgment, had not that cunning wolf snatched you — a lamb made from a wolf — from the Lord's sheepfold, not at all unwilling, in order to make of you a wolf from a lamb, like himself! O what great exultation your salvation, kept safe, would have offered to the loving Father of all, God, and of the saints, had not the ill-fated father of all the lost ones, like a demon with great wings and talons of an eagle, snatched you against right and divine law into the unhappy throng of his sons!

In short, your conversion to good fruit ministered as much joy and sweetness then to heaven and earth, as now your unspeakable relapse — after the manner of a sick dog returning to its vomit (Prov. 26:11; 2 Pet. 2:22) — has ministered grief and mourning to a horrible end. This being accomplished, your members are presented as weapons of iniquity to sin (Rom. 6:13) and to the devil, which, had your sense been sound, ought eagerly to have been presented as weapons of righteousness to God. With ears pricked up, men listen not to the praises of God, with the melodious voice of Christ's young recruits sweetly modulating, nor to the breath of ecclesiastical melody, but to your own praises (which are nothing), praises of villains, full of lies and at the same time of foaming phlegm, ready to bespatter all who stand near with the savage mouth of heralds, blaring after the manner of revelers;

so that the vessel once prepared for the ministry of God is turned into an instrument of the devil, and what was thought worthy of heavenly honor is deservedly cast into the pit of hell. Nor yet, amid such great stumbling-blocks of evils, is your sense — dulled by the heap of your folly — held back as if by some barrier; but, fervid, like a colt deeming every pleasant thing not yet ranged over, you are dragged with irrevocable madness through the open fields of crimes, adding new sins to the old. For your first marriage is despised — after the void vow of a monk, though unlawful, yet to your own presumptive wife; and another woman is loved, the wife of a living man, not a stranger but the son of your own brother.

On account of which that stiff neck of yours, already laden with many bundles of sins, is bent down from the depths to lower depths by a twofold parricidal venture — slaying the aforesaid man and your own wife, whom you had kept for some time, as though it were the topmost pinnacle of your sacrilege. Thereafter, that woman, by whose collusion and prompting such sudden masses of sins arose, you took to yourself in public and (as the false tongues of your parasites proclaim, yet only with the tips of their lips, not from the depths of the heart) lawful wedlock, since she was widowed; but to our reckoning, in a most wicked union. Whose holy heart, pricked by such a history, would not at once burst into weeping and sobbing?

What priest whose heart lies open and upright before God, hearing these things, would not at once with a great wail say that prophetic word: 'Who will give water to my head, and to my eyes a fountain of tears, that I may weep day and night for the slain of my people' (Jer. 9:1)? Alas! if indeed you have given but little ear to the prophetic rebuke that says thus: 'Woe to you, ungodly men: you have forsaken the law of the Most High God; and if you are born, your portion shall be unto cursing. All things that are of the earth shall return into the earth: so the ungodly shall pass from cursing into cursing' (Sir. 41:11-13) — understand, 'shall pass' — unless they return to the Lord, having heeded at least such an admonition: 'Son, you have sinned; add not again; but for your former sins also entreat forgiveness' (Sir. 21:1).

And again: 'Delay not to be converted to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day' (Sir. 5:8-9). For His wrath comes suddenly; because, as the Scripture says: 'When a king hears an unjust word, all who are under him are wicked' (Prov. 29:12). For surely a king, as the prophet said, who is just raises up his land (Prov. 29:4). But you, indeed, do not lack admonitions, since you have had an elegant master, teacher of the precepts of well-nigh all Britain. Beware therefore lest there happen to you what is noted by Solomon: 'As one who rouses a sleeper from heavy slumber, so is he who relates wisdom to a fool. For at the end of the narration he will say: What did you first say?' (Sir. 22:8-9). Remove your heart from malice (as it is said), O Jerusalem, that you may be saved (Jer. 4:14).

Do not despise, I pray, the ineffable mercy of God, who in this manner through the prophet calls back the ungodly from their sins: 'Suddenly will I speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to pluck up, and to scatter, and to destroy, and to ruin' (Jer. 18:7). This vehemently exhorts the sinner to repentance: 'And if that nation shall repent of its sin, I also will repent of the evil that I had spoken that I would do to it' (Jer. 18:8). And again: 'Who shall give them such a heart, that they may hear Me and keep My precepts, and that it may be well with them all the days of their life?' (Deut. 5:29). And likewise in the canticle of Deuteronomy: 'A people,' He says, 'without counsel and without prudence. Would that they were wise and understood, and would foresee their last end.'

'How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight?' (Deut. 32:28, 30). And again in the Gospel the Lord says: 'Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart: and you shall find rest for your souls' (Matt. 11:28-29). What then, if you hear these things with deaf ears, despise the prophets, scorn Christ, and reckon us (though we be of the meanest sort) of no moment, who with sincere piety of soul keep that prophetic word — that, however it may be, if I do not fulfill it in strength, in the spirit and power of the Lord, to declare to the house of Jacob and the house of Israel their crimes (Isa.

58:1) — let us not be dumb dogs unable to bark (Isa. 56:10). And that of Solomon, who says thus: 'He who says the wicked is just shall be accursed of the peoples, and odious to the nations: but those who reprove shall hope for better things' (Prov. 24:24-25). And again: 'Do not respect persons in their downfall, nor withhold a word in the time of salvation' (Sir. 4:27-28). And likewise: 'Deliver those who are led to death; and forbear not to redeem those who are slain' (Prov. 24:11); because riches, as the same prophet says, shall not profit in the day of wrath: justice delivers from death (Prov. 11:4). For if the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (1 Pet. 4:18; Prov. 11:31).

That dark torrent of hell shall surely whirl you with its savage roll and waves, as it were the bitterest, forever tormenting and never consuming you; to whom there shall then be a late and useless seeing of the punishment and repentance of evil, by whom in this accepted time and day of salvation conversion to the right way of life is deferred (2 Cor. 6:2). Here indeed, or even before, this so lamentable and querulous history of the evils of this age ought to have been concluded (lest our mouth should any longer speak of the works of men). But lest they think us timid or weary — so that we may untiringly beware that saying of Isaiah, 'Woe,' he says, 'to him who calls good evil and evil good, putting darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter' (Isa.

5:20); who seeing, see not, and hearing, hear not (Matt. 13:13); whose heart is covered over with a certain thick cloud of vices: it pleases us to set forth briefly what and how great are the threats which the prophetic oracles cry aloud against those aforesaid wanton satellites of Pharaoh (by whom his army, doomed to perish in the Red Sea, is vigorously provoked) and the like of them, those five horses; that by them, as by a fair covering, the structure of our little work may be most faithfully sheltered (so that it may not stand penetrable to the showers of the envious that are about to rush upon it in rivalry).

Let the holy seers therefore answer on our behalf — now as before, they who are in a manner the mouth of God and the instrument of the Holy Spirit, forbidding evils to mortals and favoring good things — against the contumacious and proud princes of this age, lest they say that we, by our own invention and only by loquacious rashness, hurl such threats and such great terrors at them. For to none of the wise is it doubtful by how much the sins of this age are graver than those of old, the Apostle saying: 'Anyone transgressing the law shall die by two or three witnesses: how much worse punishments, do you think, does he deserve who has trodden under foot the Son of God?' (Heb. 10:28-29).

First among these there meets us Samuel, by God's command the establisher of a lawful kingdom, dedicated to God before he was born, a truthful prophet known by signs undoubtedly wondrous to all the people of Israel from Dan even to Beersheba, from whose mouth the Holy Spirit thundered against all the powers of the world, denouncing to the first king among the Hebrews, namely Saul, because he had not fulfilled certain of the commands of the Lord, saying: 'You have done foolishly, and have not kept the commands of the Lord your God which He commanded you. For if you had not done so, even now God would have established your kingdom over Israel. But by no means shall your kingdom arise hereafter' (1 Sam. 13:13-14). What then resembling the crimes of this age did he commit — adultery or parricide? By no means.

But a partial alteration of the command; because, as one of us well says: 'It is not a question of the quality of the sin, but of the transgression of the commandment.' And likewise, when he was purging himself, as he thought, against the charges laid, and shrewdly weaving excuses (as is the custom of the human race) in this manner — 'Nay, I heard the voice of the Lord, and I walked in the way by which He sent me' (1 Sam. 15:20) — Samuel punished him with this reproof: 'Does the Lord,' he said, 'desire holocausts or victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord be obeyed? For obedience is better than victims, and to hearken than to offer the fat of rams. For it is like the sin of soothsaying to resist, and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to yield.'

'Therefore, because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you, that you should not be king' (1 Sam. 15:22-23). And a little after: 'The Lord,' he said, 'has rent the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to your neighbor better than you. Moreover, the Triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be bent by repentance: for He is not a man, that He should do penance' (1 Sam. 15:28-29) — understand, over the hard hearts of evil men. It is to be noted, therefore, that he said it was the crime of idolatry to refuse to yield to God. Let not these wicked men, then, flatter themselves because they do not openly sacrifice to the gods of the nations: since, trampling like swine upon the most precious pearls of Christ, they are idolaters.

But although this one example, as an unconquerable witness, would abundantly suffice for the correction of the wicked, yet, that in the mouth of many witnesses every evil of Britain may be proved, let us pass on to the rest. What befell David for numbering the people, when Gad the prophet said: 'Thus says the Lord: A choice of three things is given you. Choose one of these that you will, that I may do it to you. Either seven years of famine shall come upon you; or for three months you shall flee from your adversaries, and they shall pursue you; or else for three days there shall be pestilence in your land' (2 Sam. 24:12-13).

For, hemmed in by such a condition, and willing rather to fall into the hands of the merciful God than of men, he is humbled by the slaughter of seventy thousand of his people; and unless, out of the affection of apostolic charity for his fellow countrymen, he had chosen to die, that the plague might not touch them — saying, 'I am he that has sinned, I the shepherd have done wickedly: these who are the sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I beseech, be turned against me' (2 Sam. 24:17) — he would have atoned by his own death for the inconsiderate pride of his heart. For what does the Scripture relate in what follows concerning his son? 'Solomon,' it says, 'did that which was not pleasing before the Lord, and did not fulfill it that he should follow the Lord as his father did. The Lord said to him:'

Because you have had this with you, and have not kept My covenant and My precepts which I commanded you, in rending I will rend your kingdom, and will give it to your servant' (1 Kings 11:6, 11). Hear what befell two sacrilegious kings of Israel (just as these are), Jeroboam and Baasha, to whom the sentence of the Lord is directed through the prophet, saying thus: 'Forasmuch as I exalted you prince over Israel, because they have provoked Me in their vanities' (1 Kings 14:7). 'Behold, I will raise up evil after Baasha and after his house, and I will deliver up his house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat. He of his that shall die in the city, the dogs shall eat; and his dead body in the field shall the birds of heaven eat' (1 Kings 16:3-4).

What is threatened, by the holy mouth of Elijah and the fiery address of the Lord, to that other wicked king of Israel, a fellow-soldier of these men (by whose collusion and his wife's deceit the innocent Naboth was oppressed on account of his ancestral vineyard), saying thus? 'You have killed, and moreover you have taken possession. And after this you shall add: Thus says the Lord: In this place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, they shall lick your blood also' (1 Kings 21:19). That this came to pass thus is established by most certain reasoning. But lest perchance, according to the aforesaid Ahab, a lying spirit speaking vain things in the mouth of your prophets (1 Kings

22:22) should seduce you, so that you do not hear the words of the prophet Micaiah: 'Behold, the Lord has permitted a lying spirit in the mouth of all your prophets who are here; and the Lord has spoken evil against you' (1 Kings 22:23). For even now it is certain that there are some teachers filled with a contrary spirit, asserting depraved pleasure rather than truth, whose words are softer than oil, and yet they are darts (Ps. 55:22); who say, 'Peace, peace,' and there shall be no peace for those who remain in sins (Jer. 6:14; 8:11), as elsewhere the prophet says: 'There is no rejoicing for the ungodly, says the Lord' (Isa. 48:22; 57:21). Azariah also, the son of Oded, spoke to the army returning to him from the slaughter of a thousand thousand Ethiopians, saying:

'The Lord is with you, while you are with Him; and if you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you' (2 Chron. 15:2). For if Jehoshaphat, bringing aid to a wicked king, is thus rebuked by the prophet Jehu, son of Hanani, who says: 'Do you help a sinner, or love him whom the Lord hates? therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you' (2 Chron. 19:2) — what shall become of those who are fettered by the very cords of their own crimes? Whose sins it is necessary for us to hate, not their souls (if we wish to fight in the Lord's battle-line), as the Psalmist says: 'You who love the Lord, hate evil' (Ps. 97:10).

What did the prophet Elijah — chariot and charioteer of Israel — declare to the son of the aforesaid Jehoshaphat, namely Joram the parricide, who, a bastard, slaughtered his excellent brothers that he might reign in their stead? 'Thus says,' he says, 'the Lord, the God of David your father: Because you have not walked in the way of Jehoshaphat your father, and in the ways of Asa king of Judah, but have walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and have caused fornication as the house of Ahab did, and have slain your brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat, better than yourself; behold, the Lord will strike you with a great plague, you and your sons' (2 Chron. 21:12, 14). And a little after: 'And you shall be in great sickness, in a disease of your bowels, until your bowels fall out by reason of the disease, day after day' (2 Chron. 21:15).

And attend to what Zechariah, son of Jehoiada the seer, threatened against Joash king of Israel, who, like you, forsook the Lord; who, rising up, said to the people: 'Thus says the Lord: Why do you transgress the precepts of the Lord, and prosper not? Because you have forsaken the Lord, He also will forsake you' (2 Chron. 24:20). What shall I say of Isaiah, the author among the prophets, who began the preface of his prophecy, or his vision, thus, saying? 'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have nourished and exalted children; but they have spurned Me. The ox knows his lofty owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel has not known Me, and My people has not understood' (Isa. 1:1-4).

And a little after, fitting deserved threats to such great folly: 'The daughter of Zion,' he says, 'shall be left as a tabernacle in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a city that is laid waste' (Isa. 1:8). And addressing the princes especially, he says: 'Hear the word of the Lord, you princes of Sodom; give ear to the law of the Lord, you people of Gomorrah' (Isa. 1:10). It is indeed to be noted that wicked kings are called princes of Sodom. For the Lord, forbidding sacrifices and gifts to be offered to Him by such men (and we, rejoicing, accept what is not pleasing to God from every nation, and do not permit the same to be distributed to the needy and to those who have well-nigh nothing, to our own destruction), says to those laden with broad riches yet intent upon the filth of sins:

'Offer no more sacrifice in vain: incense is an abomination to Me' (Isa. 1:13). And likewise He declares: 'And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away My eyes from you; and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear' (Isa. 1:15). And He shows why He does this: 'Your hands,' He says, 'are full of blood.' And at the same time showing how He might be appeased, He says: 'Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your thoughts from before My eyes: cease to act perversely. Learn to do good, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the orphan' (Isa. 1:16-17). As though adding the recompense of His being appeased, He says: 'If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow.'

'And if they be as red as scarlet, they shall be made white as wool. If you be willing and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land. But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath, the sword shall devour you' (Isa. 1:18, 20). Receive a truthful and public witness, who testifies the recompense of your good and evil without any disguise of flattery — not as the lips of your parasites hiss venom into your ears with fawning reverence — declaring: 'Thy princes are faithless, companions of thieves; they all love bribes, they run after rewards. They judge not for the fatherless, and the widow's cause comes not in unto them. Therefore says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: Ah! I will be comforted over my adversaries, and I will be avenged of my enemies:'

'— and the wicked and the sinners shall be destroyed together, and all who have forsaken the Lord shall be consumed' (Isa. 1:23, 24, 28). And further on: 'The lofty eyes of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low' (Isa. 2:11). And again: 'Woe to the wicked unto evil: for the recompense of his hands shall be given him' (Isa. 3:11). And after a little: 'Woe to you who rise up early in the morning to pursue drunkenness, and to drink even until evening that you may be inflamed with wine. The harp and the lyre and the timbrel and the pipe and wine are in your feasts; but you regard not the work of the Lord, nor consider the works of his hands. Therefore my people are led away captive, because they had no knowledge, and their nobles have perished with hunger, and their multitude was dried up with thirst.

Therefore hell has enlarged its soul, and opened its mouth without any bound; and their strong ones and their people, and their high and glorious ones, shall descend into it' (Isa. 5:11, 14). And further on: 'Woe to you who are mighty to drink wine, and valiant men to mingle strong drink: who justify the wicked for bribes, and take away the justice of the just from him. Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and the heat of the flame consumes it, so shall their root be as embers, and their bud shall go up as dust. For they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still' (Isa. 5:22-25). 9.

And after some space, treating of the day of judgement and the unspeakable terror of sinners, he says: 'Howl, for the day of the Lord is near' (if it was near then, what shall be thought of it now?), 'for destruction shall come from God. Therefore all hands shall be faint, and the heart of every man shall melt and be crushed: pangs and pains shall seize them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travails. Every one shall be amazed at his neighbour: their faces shall be as faces burnt. Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, cruel, and full of indignation and wrath and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to crush its sinners out of it. For the stars of heaven and their splendour shall not spread their light: the sun shall be darkened in its rising, and the moon shall not shine in its season.

And I will visit upon the world its evils, and against the wicked their iniquity, and I will make the pride of the unbelievers to cease, and I will lay low the arrogance of the strong' (Isa. 13:6, 11). And again: 'Behold, the Lord shall lay waste the earth, and shall strip it, and shall afflict its face, and scatter its inhabitants. And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest; and as with the servant, so with his master; as with the handmaid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with him who sells; as with the lender, so with him who borrows; as with him who demands again, so with him who owes. With wasting shall the earth be wasted, and with spoiling shall it be plundered: for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth has mourned and run down, the world has wasted away, it is grown weak with its inhabitants:

because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse shall devour the earth' (Isa. 24:1, 6). And further on: 'All who rejoice in heart shall groan; the mirth of timbrels shall cease, the noise of the joyful shall be stilled, the sweetness of the harp shall be silent; they shall not drink wine with a song, the drink shall be bitter to those who drink it. The city of vanity is broken down, every house is shut up that none may enter. There shall be a crying for wine in the streets, all gladness is forsaken, the joy of the earth is removed, desolation is left in the city, and calamity shall oppress the gates: for these things shall be in the midst of the land, and in the midst of the peoples' (Isa. 24:7, 13). And after a little:

The transgressors have transgressed, and with the transgression of those who break faith they have transgressed. Fear and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass: he who flees from the voice of fear shall fall into the pit; and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare: for the floodgates from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken. With breaking shall the earth be broken, with commotion shall it be moved, with shaking shall it be shaken like a drunken man, and it shall be taken away like the tent of a single night; and its iniquity shall weigh upon it, and it shall fall, and shall not rise again. And it shall come to pass:

In that day the Lord shall visit upon the host of heaven on high, and upon the kings of the earth who are upon the earth, and they shall be gathered together into one bundle into the pit, and they shall be shut up there in prison, and after many days they shall be visited. And the moon shall be ashamed and the sun confounded, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and shall be glorified in the sight of his elders' (Isa. 24:21, 23). And after some space, giving the reason why he threatens such things, he speaks thus: 'Behold, the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save; neither is his ear made heavy that it cannot hear.

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you that he would not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity: your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue utters iniquity. There is none that calls for justice, neither is there any that judges truly: but they trust in nothing, and speak vanities, and have conceived sorrow, and brought forth iniquity' (Isa. 59:1, 4). And further on: 'Their works are unprofitable, and the work of iniquity is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are unprofitable thoughts:

wasting and destruction are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known, and there is no judgement in their goings. Their paths are made crooked for them: whoever treads in them knows not peace. Therefore is judgement far from you, and justice shall not overtake you' (Isa. 59:6, 9). And after a little: 'And judgement is turned back, and justice stands afar off: for truth has fallen in the street, and equity could not enter. And truth has been put into oblivion: and he who departed from evil lay open as a prey. And the Lord saw, and it did not please him in his eyes, because there is no judgement' (Isa. 59:14, 15). Thus far let it suffice to have set down a few of the many words of the prophet Isaiah. 10.

But now hear, attending for a moment, what that one — who before he was formed in the womb was foreknown, and before he came forth from the belly was sanctified, and was appointed a prophet among all the nations, that is, Jeremiah — pronounced concerning a foolish people and stubborn kings, beginning his words gently in this manner: 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, and you shall say: Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord: What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become vain; and they did not say: Where is he who brought us up out of the land of Egypt?' (Jer. 1:5; 2:1, 4, 5, 6).

And after a little: 'Of old you have broken my yoke, you have burst my bonds, and you said: I will not serve. I planted you a chosen vineyard, all true seed: how then are you turned to me into the depraved one, a strange vine? Though you wash yourself with nitre, and multiply for yourself the herb borith, you are stained with your iniquity before me, says the Lord' (Jer. 2:20-22). And further on: 'Why will you contend with me in judgement? You have all forsaken me, says the Lord. In vain have I struck your children: they received not correction. Hear the word of the Lord: Am I become a wilderness to Israel, or a land of lateness? Will a virgin forget her ornament, or a bride the band of her breast? But my people have forgotten me for days without number' (Jer. 2:29-32).

For my people is foolish, they have not known me: they are foolish and senseless children: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge' (Jer. 4:22). Then the prophet speaks in his own person, saying: 'O Lord, your eyes look upon faith: you have struck them, and they have not grieved: you have crushed them, and they refused to receive correction' (Jer. 5:3). And again the Lord: 'Declare this to the house of Jacob, and make it heard in Judah, saying: Hear, O foolish people who have no heart; you who having eyes see not, and having ears hear not. Will you then not fear me, says the Lord, and not tremble at my face? — I who placed the sand as a bound for the sea, an everlasting decree which it shall not pass: and the waters shall be moved, and shall not prevail:

its waves shall swell, and shall not pass over it. But this people has gotten an unbelieving and provoking heart, they have departed and gone away: and they did not say in their heart: Let us fear the Lord our God' (Jer. 5:22-24). And again: 'For there are found among my people wicked men lying in wait like fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great and enriched: they are grown fat and gross; and they have most wickedly passed over my words: they have not directed the cause of the fatherless, and have not judged the judgement of the poor. Shall I not visit upon these things, says the Lord? Or shall not my soul take vengeance on such a nation as this?' (Jer. 5:26-29). 11.

But far be it that there should befall you what follows: 'You shall speak to them all these words, and they will not hear you: and you shall call them, and they will not answer you. And you shall say to them: This is the nation which has not heard the voice of the Lord their God, nor received correction: faith has perished, and is taken away out of their mouth' (Jer. 7:27, 28). And after some space: 'Shall not he who falls rise again? And he who is turned away, shall he not return? Why then is this people in Jerusalem turned away with a contentious turning away? They have laid hold on lying, and they refused to return. I attended and hearkened: no man speaks what is good. There is none who does penance for his sin, saying: What have I done? They are all turned to their own course, like a horse rushing headlong to the battle.

The kite in heaven knows its appointed time: the turtledove and the swallow and the stork observe the time of their coming: but my people has not known the judgement of God' (Jer. 8:4-7). And the prophet, terrified by so violent a blindness of sacrileges and an unspeakable drunkenness, and weeping for those who would not weep for themselves (as the unhappy tyrants do even now), longs that an increase of weeping be granted him by the Lord, speaking thus: 'For the breaking of the daughter of my people am I broken: amazement has seized me. Is there no balm in Gilead, or is there no physician there? Why then is the scar of the daughter of my people not closed over?' (Jer. 8:21, 22).

Who will give water to my head and to my eyes a fountain of tears, that I may weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people? Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfarers, that I may forsake my people and depart from them? For they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors. And they have bent their tongue like a bow of falsehood and not of truth; they have grown strong in the land, for they have gone forth from evil to evil, and have not known me, says the Lord' (Jer. 9:1-3). And again: 'And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, nor walked in it, and have gone after the depravity of their own heart; therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

Behold, therefore, I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink' (Jer. 9:13-15). And after a little (which also the prophet frequently joined to his pen, speaking in the person of God): 'You therefore, do not pray for this people, and do not take up for them praise and prayer: for I will not hear in the time of their crying to me, and of their affliction' (Jer. 11:14). 12. What then will the ill-omened leaders now do? Those few who find the narrow way, the broad being shunned, who are forbidden by God to pour out prayers for you who persevere in evils and so greatly provoke him;

to whom, by contrast, returning from the heart to God — God not willing that the soul of man should perish, but holding back lest he who is cast away should utterly perish — they could not have brought down vengeance: for neither could Jonah, and that though the prophet greatly desired it for the Ninevites. But leaving our own matters aside for the present, let us rather hear what the prophetic trumpet sounds forth: 'But if you shall say in your heart,' he says, 'Why have these evils come? Because of the multitude of your iniquity. If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots, you also will be able to do good, when you have learned evil' (Jer. 13:22, 23): (it is to be understood) because you will not. And further on:

Thus says the Lord to this people, who has loved to move their feet, and has not rested, and has not pleased the Lord: now he will remember their iniquities, and visit their sins. And the Lord said to me: Do not pray for this people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their prayers: and if they offer holocausts and victims, I will not accept them' (Jer. 14:10-12). And again: 'And the Lord said to me: If Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my soul is not toward this people. Cast them out from my face, and let them go forth' (Jer. 15:1). And after a little: 'Who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Or who will be sorrowful for you? Or who will go to ask for your peace? You have forsaken me, says the Lord, and gone backward:

and I will stretch out my hand upon you, and I will destroy you' (Jer. 15:5, 6). And after some space: 'Thus says the Lord: Behold, I frame a device against you: let every one return from his evil way, and amend your ways and your endeavours. Who said: We despair: we will go after our own thoughts, and every one of us will do the depravity of his evil heart. Therefore thus says the Lord: Ask among the nations: Who has heard such horrible things, which the virgin of Israel has done in excess? Will the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field, or can the cold flowing waters that gush forth be plucked away? For my people has forgotten me' (Jer. 18:11-15). And after some space, a choice being set before them, he speaks, saying: 'Thus says the Lord:

Execute judgement and justice, and deliver the oppressed from the hand of the slanderer: and do not afflict the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, neither oppress them wrongfully: and shed not innocent blood. For if you indeed do this word, kings of the line of David, sitting upon his throne, shall enter in through the gates of this house. But if you will not hear these words, I have sworn by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall be a wilderness' (Jer. 22:3-5). And again (for he was speaking of a wicked king): 'As I live, says the Lord: for though Jechonias were a signet ring on my right hand, thence will I pluck him off: and I will give him into the hand of those who seek his soul' (Jer. 22:24, 25). 13. Holy Habakkuk also proclaims, saying:

'Woe to those who build a city in blood, and prepare a city in iniquities, saying: Are not these things from the Lord Almighty? And many peoples have failed in the fire, and many nations have been brought to nothing' (Hab. 2:12, 13). And so he begins his prophecy complaining: 'How long shall I cry out, and you will not hear? Shall I cry aloud to you? Why have you given me to behold labours and sorrows, misery and impiety against me? And judgement is made, and the judge has received. Therefore the law is broken, and judgement is not brought to an end' (Hab. 1:2-4). And the blessed prophet Hosea also — attend to what he says of princes, saying: 'Because they have transgressed my covenant, and have acted against my law, and cried out:

We have known you, that you are adverse to Israel. The good they have persecuted as the wicked. They have reigned for themselves, and not by me: they have held the principality, but have not acknowledged me' (Hos. 8:1-4). And hear too holy Amos the prophet threatening in this manner: 'For three impieties of the children of Judah, and for four, I will not turn them away: because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments; but their vanities have seduced them. And I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the foundations of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord: For three impieties of Israel, and for four, I will not turn them away: because they have sold the just for money, and the poor for shoes, which they tread upon the dust of the earth: and with blows they smote

the heads of the poor, and turned aside the way of the humble' (Amos 2:4-7). And after a little: 'Seek the Lord, and you shall live: lest the house of Joseph blaze up like fire, and devour it, and there be none to quench it' (Amos 5:6). This Amos, when forbidden to prophesy in the holy place, answered without any season of flattery: 'I was not,' he said, 'a prophet, nor the son of a prophet: but I was a herdsman pinching off sycamores. And the Lord took me from the flocks, and the Lord said to me: Go and prophesy to my people Israel. And now hear the word of the Lord' (for he was addressing the king): 'You say, Do not prophesy in Israel, and gather not crowds in the house of Jacob. Therefore thus says the Lord:

Your wife shall play the harlot in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be measured out by a line: and you shall die in an unclean land; but Israel shall be led away captive from its land' (Amos 7:14-17). And further on: 'Hear therefore these things, you who trample the needy without measure, and exercise dominion over the poor of the land, you who say: When will the month pass that we may gain, and the sabbaths that we may open our treasures?' (Amos 8:4, 5). And after a little: 'The Lord swears against the pride of Jacob, whether he will forget your works in contempt; and shall not the land be troubled for these things, and shall not every one mourn who dwells in it, and shall not destruction rise up like a river?

And I will turn your feast days into mourning, and I will cast sackcloth upon every loin, and baldness upon every head: and I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and those who are with him as a day of bitterness' (Amos 8:7, 8, 10). And again: 'All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say: Evils shall not draw near nor come upon us' (Amos 9:10). 14. And holy Micah the seer also — attend to what he has uttered: 'Hear,' he says, 'O tribe. And what shall adorn the city? Shall fire? And the house of the wicked treasuring up unjust treasures, and injury together with justice. Shall the wicked be justified in the balance, and the deceitful weights in the bag, with which they have filled up their riches in impiety?' (Mic. 6:9-12).

And hear too the renowned prophet Zephaniah, what threats he heaps up: 'Near is the great day of the Lord,' he says, 'near and exceeding swift. The voice of the day of the Lord is appointed bitter and mighty; that day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of cloud and mist, a day of trumpet and alarm, a day of misery and extermination, a day of darkness and gloom over the strong cities and over the high corners. And I will distress men, and they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and I will pour out their blood like dust, and their flesh like the dung of oxen: and their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord.

And in the fire of his jealousy the whole earth shall be consumed, when the Lord shall make an end and a desolation of all who dwell in the land' (Zeph. 1:14-18). 'Assemble and gather yourselves together, O nation without discipline, before you become as the flower that passes away, before the wrath of the Lord come upon you' (Zeph. 2:1, 2). And attend to what holy Haggai the prophet says: 'Thus says the Lord: Once will I move heaven and earth, and the sea and the dry land: and I will overturn the kingdom, and I will exterminate the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and I will overthrow the chariots and the riders' (Hag. 2:22, 23). Now too consider what Zechariah, son of Iddo, the chosen prophet, has said, thus beginning his prophecy:

Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord: and do not be such as your fathers, to whom the former prophets imputed it, saying: Thus says the Lord Almighty' (Zech. 1:3, 4). And further on: 'And the angel said to me: What do you see? And I said: I see a flying sickle, twenty cubits in length: it is the curse that goes forth over the face of the whole earth: for every thief shall be punished out of it even unto death. And I will cast it forth, says the Lord Almighty; and it shall enter into the house of fury and into the house of swearing falsely in my name' (Zech. 5:2-4). Holy Malachi the prophet also says: 'Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, kindled like a furnace: and all the proud and all who work iniquity shall be as stubble:

and the coming day shall inflame them, says the Lord of hosts, which shall leave them neither root nor branch' (Mal. 4:1). 15. Holy Job also — attend to what he has discussed concerning the beginning of the wicked and their end, saying: 'Wherefore do the wicked live, and grow old dishonourably? And their seed is according to their desire, and their children before their face. And their houses are fruitful, and the fear and the plague of the Lord is never upon them. Their cow does not miscarry, and their pregnant one bears her offspring, and does not stray, but remains like the everlasting sheep. And their little ones rejoice, and taking the psaltery and the harp they have ended their life in good things, and in the rest of the dead they have slept' (Job 21:7-13).

Does not God reject the deeds of the wicked? Not so; rather, the lamp of the wicked shall be put out: and overthrow shall come upon them, and pains, as of a woman in travail, shall seize them from wrath. And they shall be as chaff before the wind, and as dust which the whirlwind has carried away. Let good things fail his children, let his eyes behold his own slaughter, nor shall he be released by the Lord' (Job 21:17, 18, 20). And after some space, concerning the same: 'Those,' he says, 'who carried off the flock with its shepherd, and led away the beast of orphans, and took the widow's ox in pledge, and turned aside the powerless from the way of need. They reaped the field before its time, which was not their own: they made the poor labour in the vineyards of the powerful without wages and without food: they made many sleep naked without garments:

they took away the covering of their soul' (Job 24:2-4, 6, 7). And after a little: 'Therefore, since he knew their deeds, he delivered them over to darkness: Cursed therefore be his portion from the earth: let his plantings bring forth dry things. Let it therefore be repaid to him as he did: let every wicked one be crushed like a tree without soundness. For rising up in fury he overthrows the powerless. Therefore he will not believe in his own life: when he begins to grow weak, let him not hope for health, but he shall fall into languor. For his pride has wounded many; and he has become withered like the mallow in the heat, like the ear of grain when it falls from its stalk' (Job 24:18, 20, 22, 24). And further on: 'But if his children be many, they shall be for slaughter.

But if he heap up silver like earth, and prepare gold like clay, the just shall obtain all these things' (Job 27:14-17). Attend besides to what the blessed Esdras, that prophet who was the library of the law, has threatened, discussing in this manner: 'Thus says the Lord God: My right hand shall not spare the sinners, nor shall the sword cease over him who pours out innocent blood upon the earth. Fire shall go forth from my wrath, and shall devour the foundations of the earth, and the sinners like kindled stubble. Woe to those who sin and do not keep my commandments, says the Lord: I will not spare them. Depart, you apostate children, and do not defile my sanctification. God knows those who sin against him;

therefore he will deliver them to death and to slaughter. For now evils, many of them, hold sway over the whole world' (4 Esdras 15:21-27). 'A sword is sent forth like fire; and who is there that shall beat it back? Shall any one beat back a lion hungering in the forest? Or shall any one quench the fire when the stubble is kindled? The Lord God will send evils; and who is there that shall beat them back? And fire shall go forth from his fury; and who shall quench it? He shall flash lightning; and who shall not fear? He shall thunder; and who shall not shudder? God shall threaten all things; and who shall not be terrified? At his face the earth shall tremble, and the foundations of the deep shall heave in the abyss' (4 Esdras 16:3-12). 16.

Ezekiel too, the excellent prophet and wondrous beholder of the four evangelical living creatures — attend to what he has declared concerning the wicked; to whom first the Lord, as he piteously wept for the wound of Israel, said: 'The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah has grown exceedingly strong, for the land is filled with iniquity and uncleanness' (Ezek. 9:9). 'Behold, I am here: my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity' (Ezek. 5:8, 11). And further on: 'Since the land is full of peoples, and the city is full of iniquity: I will turn away the onrush of their strength, and their holy places shall be polluted. Entreaty shall come, and shall seek peace, and there shall be none' (Ezek. 7:23-25). And after some space: 'The word of the Lord came to me,' he says, 'saying:

Son of man, when a land sins against me so as to commit a trespass, I will stretch out my hand upon it, and will break its staff of bread, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off from it man and beast. And though these three men were in the midst of it — Noah, Daniel and Job — they shall not deliver it: but they themselves shall be saved in their own righteousness, says the Lord. And if I also bring evil beasts upon the land and punish it, and it be unto extermination; and there be none who may pass through because of the beasts: even if these three men were in the midst of it — as I live, says the Lord — they shall not deliver their sons and daughters: but they alone shall be saved, and the land shall be unto destruction' (Ezek. 14:12-16). And again:

The son shall not bear the injustice of the father, neither shall the father bear the injustice of the son. The justice of the just shall be upon himself. And the wicked man, if he turn himself away from all the iniquities he has done, and keep all my commandments, and do justice and much mercy, he shall surely live and not die. All his transgressions, whatsoever he has done, shall not be remembered: in his own justice which he has done, he shall live. Do I will by my will the death of the unjust, says the Lord, rather than that he turn himself from the evil way and live? But when the just turns himself away from his justice, and commits iniquity according to all the iniquities which the wicked man did, all the just deeds which he did shall not be in remembrance.

In his trespass by which he has fallen away, and in his sins by which he has sinned, he shall die' (Ezek. 18:20-24). And after some space: 'And all the nations shall know that the house of Israel were led captive for their sins, because they forsook me. And I turned my face away from them, and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and they all fell by the sword. According to their uncleannesses and according to their iniquities I dealt with them, and I turned my face away from them' (Ezek. 39:23, 24). 17. Let it suffice to have said this much concerning the threats of the holy prophets: