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.
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Etinignezeliejusconsumeturomnisterra, quandoconsummationemetsolitudinemfacietDominussuperomnescommorantesinterram (Sophon. I, 14-18). Conveniteetconjungiminigensindisciplinata, priusquamefficiaminisicutflospræteriens, priusquamveniatsuperrosiraDomini (Sophon. II, 1, 2). EtquidAggæussanctusprophetadicai, attendite: HæcdicitDominus: Semelegomovebocælumetterram, ettuareetaridam: etavertamregnum, etexterminabovirtutemregnorumgentium, etavertamquadrigasetascensores (Agg. II, 22, 23). NuncquoquequidZachariasfiliusAdioprophetaelectusdixerit, intuemini, hocmodoprophetiamsuamexordiens:
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: