Jerome

(Verse 12 onwards) For behold, the Lord will command and strike down the great house with ruins, and the small house with breaches. Can horses run on rocks, or can it be plowed with oxen? For you have turned justice into bitterness, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. You who rejoice in nothingness, who say: Have we not taken horns for ourselves in our strength? Behold, I will raise up against you, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God of hosts, a nation, and they will oppress you from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of the wilderness. LXX: Therefore, behold, the Lord will command and will strike the great house with ruins and the small house with breaches. Will horses run on rocks? Will men be silent at women? For you have turned justice into bitterness and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. You who rejoice in nothing good, who say, 'Have we not relied on our own strength?' For behold, I will raise up against you, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God of hosts, a nation, and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the brook of Egypt. Because you have sprung into such rage that, even in the time of death and impending evils, you were unwilling to utter the name of the Lord, therefore the Lord will command and strike the greater house with ruins, and the lesser house with divisions. If He commands, how does He strike? If He strikes, how does He command? But in that which He commands and orders to His ministers, He Himself seems to strike. Just as in commanding the Father and acting through the Son, He Himself who commanded does the work, the verse being fulfilled: He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created (Ps. 148:5). For all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing that was made (John 1). And in Egypt, where the firstborn who were killed by the destroyer are reported to be referred to, the Lord testifies that he himself killed them (Exodus 12). So also in the present place the Lord commands, and he himself strikes through his ministers the greater house with ruins, that is, the ten tribes, who were called Israel, and the lesser house with divisions, the two tribes, who were governed by the lineage of the house of David. And note the properties of each. Israel, because it had sinned more, is struck by ruins and is handed over to eternal captivity. But the house of Judah, in which the temple exists, and which had sinned in part, is held in captivity for seventy years and is not struck by ruins but by divisions. For a divided house can be repaired: ruins require not so much restoration as rebuilding. He compares the ruins and divisions of both houses to horses and oxen, of which the former cannot run on rocks, and the latter are so untamed that they do not accept the yoke on their necks, and since they are wild oxen, they are unwilling to plow the earth due to their fierceness. But you, though horses and buffalo cannot change their nature, have changed the nature of God, turning the sweet into the bitter and the fruit of his justice into wormwood, which is a very bitter herb. You who take delight in things that are nothing, like golden calves and idols, which are nothing, as Esther said to the Lord: Do not give your scepter to those who are not (Esther 14:11), or in nothing and falsehood. You who think you have taken horns and kingship and power by your own strength, with which you can scatter your enemies. Therefore, because you have done these things, behold, I will raise up against you, O great house and O lesser house, that will be struck by ruin and division, that is, O house of Israel and all twelve tribes, the most savage nation of Assyrians and Chaldeans, who will crush and overthrow you from beginning to end, from head to tail, from the borders of your land, which face the sun, to the desert river, or the West, as the LXX translated, that is, from Emath to Rhinocorura, between which the river Nile, or the stream coming from the desert, enters the sea. We have mentioned Emath above Epiphaniam, which got its name from Antiochus who was called Epiphanes. However, those who think that this refers to the house of Israel and the ten tribes, cannot explain how it is said in the threat against the ten tribes that they should be crushed from Epiphania to the borders of Egypt. These borders do not include only the ten tribes, but all twelve, including Judah and Benjamin. Some people, according to the allegory, believe that the large house and the smaller house symbolize the Jewish people and the Church gathered from the Gentiles. They are called 'great' because of their ancestors, the law, and the prophets. We are called 'lesser' because we were without the Testament and the commandments of God, of which we also read in the Song of Songs: 'My sister is little and has no breasts' (Song of Songs 8:8). If the great and small house, gathered into one family of God, does not have discipline and does not follow God's commandments, it will be struck by ruins and divisions. Whenever, therefore, the house of God, which is the Church, collapses and is torn apart, either in persecutions or in heresies and schisms, it shows the hand of God striking: which if we want to avoid, let us listen to and follow the comparison and example. They are not able to pursue on the rocks of the horse. Christ is the rock (I Cor. X), who gave to his apostles that they also be called rock: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mat. XVI, 18). Those who are in these stones, called horses, about which we have spoken above, will not be able to pursue him, their courses hindered and falling down through each stone. Let us come to another comparison, according to our custom, discussing the edition of the Seventy Interpreters, lest if we adhere too much to the Hebrew, we seem to have deceived the reader's diligence, and by not mentioning the Vulgate edition, we appear to have proposed it in vain. But they will certainly be silent in women, he said, no doubt meaning horses, about which he had spoken above. If they pursue horses on rocks. These horses, that is, contrary strengths, who go mad for women when they see a masculine spirit, and having been strengthened by the power of God, are not bold enough to approach. But when they see a effeminate mind, weakened by ointments and pleasures, and turned towards feminine softness, they immediately go mad and cannot hold themselves back; and they long for lust. It follows: Because you have turned judgment into fury. Judgment turns into fury for the one who judges in anger, and the Lord says: You shall not show partiality in judgment (Deut. XVI, 19). And in another place: You shall not pity the poor in judgment; for it is God's judgment (Exod. XXIII, 3): with an angry mind he descends to judge, indeed, without knowing the cause, nor does he know the truth of the judgment, he prejudges what sentence he should pass: he also turns the fruit of justice, which is most sweet, into bitterness. What we have said about one virtue, let us understand about the others as well: prudence, courage, temperance. Whoever is angry cannot enjoy their fruits, and when they do, they will be bitter. Hence it is said in Isaiah: Woe to those who call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet (Is. 5:20). This is what those say who do not consider the causes in judging, but rather the individuals, and they turn the fruit of Christ's righteousness, which is most sweet, into bitterness. Therefore, whoever is guided in judgment by either blood ties or friendship, on the other hand, is led by hostile hatred or enmities, perverts the judgment of Christ, who is justice, and turns its fruit into bitterness. Those who do this rejoice in no good word, or, as Symmachus translated, irrationally, and proudly say: Have we not had horns in our strength? But let the righteous glory in the Lord and say: In you we will scatter our enemies with horns. And in another place (Al. in the same place): For I will not hope in my bow, and my sword will not save me (Ps. 43, 6, 7). Hence, in Exodus according to the Hebrew and the Aquila edition, we read: And Moses did not know that the appearance (Al. face) of his face was horned (Exod. 34, 29), which truly could be said: In you I blow away my enemies with a horn. We also read in another place: And he will exalt the horn of his people; And: He will exalt the horn of his Christ (Ps. 148, 14, and 1 Sam. 2, 10), and the horn of the altar, and clean horned animals, which are offered only to God, whose interpretation is not of this time. Because of these great sins and extreme pride, which speaks unrighteousness against God and exalts its mouth, the Almighty Lord God declares that he will raise up the most savage nation, which will crush and afflict them, indeed, even prevent them from entering into Emath, and as far as the Western torrent. Emath is interpreted as a wall or fortified town. Therefore, they will be forbidden from seeking refuge in the most savage nation, to whom punishments have been assigned, to flee to the fortified city, which is the celestial Jerusalem, lest they enter and be saved, similar to that chapter which we read in Genesis, where God placed Cherubim and a flaming sword (Gen. II), which turned to guard the way to the tree of life, so that the one who had been expelled from paradise would by no means enter there unworthy. And what follows: We will interpret the 67th Psalm, in which it is written: Sing to the Lord, sing a psalm to his name: make a way for him who ascends upon the west: the Lord is his name (Psalm 67:5). For unless evil works have died in us, Christ will not ascend upon us. And when they have died, and we have Christ as our charioteer: then as we make progress and advance to better things, it will be commanded in the same psalm: Sing to God, sing psalms to the Lord who ascends upon the heaven of heavens towards the east (Psalm 67:33, 34). And in the mysteries, first we renounce him who is in the West, and who dies for our sins, and thus turned towards the East, we make a covenant with the sun of righteousness, and we promise to serve him. Regarding the stream of the West, Symmachus interpreted it as a valley plain: Theodotio, a stream in Arabia: Aquila, a stream that is in the plain. With these words, it is shown that those who are not excluded from the walled city cannot die to sin, nor can they reach the plain and level stream of the desert, which is called the stream of pleasure, according to what we read: You shall make them drink from the stream of your pleasure (Psalm 36:9).

(Chapter 7, verses 1-3) The Lord God showed me these things: And behold, a swarming locust at the beginning of the late crops, after the king's mowings. And it came to pass, when it had finished consuming the grass of the land, that I said: Lord God, please be merciful, I beseech You: who will raise up Jacob, for he is small? The Lord had pity on this: it shall not be, said the Lord. LXX: Thus the Lord showed me: And behold, a swarm of locusts was coming in the morning, and behold, one Gog, the king, was a bruchus. And it shall come to pass, when it is accomplished, that it shall consume the grass of the earth. And I said: Lord God, be merciful, who shall raise up Jacob, for he is little. Be sorry for us, O Lord, upon this: and upon this let it not be, saith the Lord. The prophetic word not only predicts things that will happen in the distant future, but also those that are near and will immediately follow the prophecy. For we humans often think more about ourselves than about future generations, as Ezechias says: Let there be peace in my days (2 Kings 20). So that those who have witnessed the fulfilled events that were previously announced, may turn to the worship of God, in whom the truth of prophecy resides. Therefore, the Lord revealed that Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians, would come with an infinite army, like a swarm of locusts, to annihilate everything, just as a locust devours all when it begins to rain late in the season, when the people of Israel needed the extreme mercy of Almighty God. However, the one who commands and creates this swarm of locusts is the Lord. The locust comes at the beginning of the late rain, when everything is green and the whole field is giving birth, and the flowers of different trees burst into their own kind of fruit. And to summarize in one word what I want to convey, they promise abundance of all things, flowers of trees, and the crops of the fields. But these locusts, which fly in early spring, are followed by countless beetles, which come after the late rain, and are called the barber or the king's barber because they devastate everything and leave nothing of the green grass on the earth. This barber, or haircut, Isaiah calls a sharp razor (Isa. VII), which will shave all the hair and the beard of the body of the children of Israel. And when, he says, I doubted what this razor was, he immediately brought in the king of Assyria. Therefore, the razor and barber of the king is the army of the Chaldeans, which has devastated everything like a locust, not only crops, but also wood, hay, and straw. And it came to pass, when the locust had finished eating the grass of the earth, and the prophet understood what he saw, he turned to prayer and said: Lord God, be merciful, I beseech you. I do not want my words to be fulfilled in the subversion of my people. I do not want to be chosen from the number of shepherds to announce the ruin of the ten tribes. For who can raise up Jacob, except for you alone? When everything collapses, there is no one who can restore it. Jacob is weak and is frequently destroyed by attacks from the enemy. But when he prays and sheds tears from his inner self, the Lord takes pity on him and responds: I will not destroy all of the people of Israel, there will be saved remnants. Certainly, it must be understood in this way: he saw two things that would happen at the same time. First, a locust, then a caterpillar. He prayed to the Lord for both, and only one was heard, so that the caterpillar would not devour everything to the point of annihilation. However, the flying locust would devour some things and leave others untouched. It seems to me that the 70 interpreters understood the Hebrew word Gozi (), which is interpreted as a barber or tonsure, as Gog, considering the letter Zai as Vau, and compared the countless multitude of caterpillars to the most savage Gog nation, which is described as devastating the land of Judea. But what Aquila wanted to say, I do not quite understand, unless perhaps he placed the word 'Gozi' instead of 'Gaza,' and gradually 'Gaza' was corrupted by error. Let us also say spiritually: those who have committed serious sins after the works of justice (as it is said in the prophet: 'Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you' - Hosea 10, and Jeremiah 4), are brought forth with offspring or a generation of morning locusts when the darkness of night passes, and they begin to recognize their own sins, because they did not repent. And because they did not repent, the bruchus is brought forth, which is called King Gog. But 'Gog' is translated into our language as 'roof,' a certain proud and arrogant strength. And when the hay and stubble of our land are consumed, whoever have been holy for the people will pray for forgiveness and say: Lord God, be merciful. For who else can raise up Jacob (Isa. X)? Who can heal the woman with an issue of blood, except you alone, at whose touch her health is immediately restored (Luke VIII)? For Jacob is small, or of small number, because there remain no or few traces of virtues in them. May you feel remorse, Lord, regarding this, for which you have threatened to do to your people. However, we must understand God's repentance in the Scriptures as we do sleep and anger: not that God feels remorse or changes his mind, as he speaks through the prophet: I am God, and I do not change (Mal. III, 6). And to whom we say: But you are the same, and your years will not fail (Ps. CI, 28); but rather that, when we turn to better things, it is he himself who repents of his decision, so that he does not give rewards to the righteous that he promised, if they turn to wickedness, nor does he inflict punishment on the sinner that he has threatened, if he turns to salvation. He is said to those who are going to repent: Do not give sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, so that you may be freed like a gazelle from the traps, and like a bird from the snare (Prov. VI, 4, 5). If he who despises the Lord's commandments first, and then, when he is in distress, begins to wake up, he awakens the Lord who is sleeping to him, and says: Arise, why do you sleep, Lord (Ps. XLIII, 23)? On the other hand, he who treasures up wrath for himself on the day of wrath, will feel God's anger (Rom. II). But if he repents, anger will turn into mercy, and the Lord will change with our troubles and virtues into both punishment and mercy.

(Vers. 4 seqq.) This the Lord God showed me, and behold, the Lord God called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and will consume it together with a portion. And I said: O Lord God, please cease; who will raise up Jacob since he is small? The Lord had mercy on this also, but even this shall not be, said the Lord God. LXX: Thus the Lord God showed me, and behold, He called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and consumed a portion. And I said: O Lord God, stop, who will raise up Jacob, since he is small? Let it repent thee, O Lord, upon this: and let it not be, saith the Lord, God of hosts. First the Lord shewed the prophet the workman of the locust in the beginning of the germination of the late crop, and after the late crop, the cutting off of the king or kingdom, and to express the word from word, the cutting off of the king Sennacherib, by which he sheared and laid waste all the ten tribes. Now the same Lord sheweth Nebuchadnezzar, yea, he calleth and commandeth him to come against Judah and Jerusalem. However, he calls upon the fire to set ablaze the temple and Jerusalem, and to carry out judgment in the fire against those who were once his people. And when the fire came for judgment, to fulfill the command of the Lord, it consumed a great abyss, and it also consumed a part, all the cities of Judah, and a part of the Lord's which was called his temple. And when the prophet saw this, he said to the Lord, not as before, be propitious, I beseech you, but be still, or cease; so that he may obtain by his prayers the person whom he had already seen begin to cease: especially since there is no other who can raise up the lying down and little and humiliated Jacob, except the Lord who is able to bring back the captive and those transported into Chaldea into the land of Judah. Because once, according to the prophet Hosea and the Psalmist saying: The sons of Ephraim, bending and shooting with the bow, turned back in the day of battle (Psalm 77, 9), we have attributed the ten tribes to the person of the heretics, who were called Israel, and the two, over which Judas presided, to the Church and the sinners of the Church, who indeed confess the right faith, but are in need of purging themselves from the filth of vices with flames: for this reason now the Lord shows that he calls himself to the fire of judgment, so that the fire may prove the quality of each one's work (1 Corinthians 3), and that which is written may be fulfilled: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame you have kindled (Isaiah 50, 11). And it is said to Babylon: You have coals of fire, you shall sit upon them; they shall be to you for help (Isai. XLVII, 14, sec. LXX) . And in the psalm, The deceitful tongue, full of lies, is said to be purified by the fire of coals: What shall be given to you, or what shall be added to you, for a deceitful tongue? The sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of desolation (Ps. CXIX, 3, 4) . About these coals of the altar, the coal of the desolating coals of the two Testaments is taken with a pair of tongs, and the unclean lips of Isaiah are purified, so that he may be able to prophesy the word of the Lord (Isai. VI). But the fire, summoned for judgment, first devours the abyss, that is, all kinds of sins, wood, hay, straw, and then it consumes at the same time the part, that is, it reaches the saints, who are considered as the possession of the Lord and as part of him; for it is the time for judgment to begin from the house of the Lord. And in Ezekiel it is commanded to those who will suffer punishment: Begin from my own sanctified ones (Ezek. IX). And in the Apostle Paul we read: If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (I Cor. III). And when we all have been in sin, and we have lied in the truth of judgment, our Lord will have mercy on us, and because we are children, He will raise us up at the time of resurrection, or He will raise us up through the virtues in which we lay in vices, with the Lord promising this and saying: But even this will not be. He said well, but He also said: because He had already said above: this will not be. For He will not be angry forever, nor will He threaten eternally (Ps. 102). He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

(Verse 7 and following) This is what was shown to me: And behold, the Lord stood (in the Latin Vulgate, 'standing') on a wall made of stones, and in his hand was a trowel of a mason. And the Lord said to me, 'What do you see, Amos?' And I said, 'A trowel of a mason.' And the Lord said, 'Behold, I will set a trowel in the midst of my people Israel. I will not add to pass over him anymore, and the high places of idols will be demolished, and the sanctuaries of Israel will be deserted, and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.' LXX: Thus the Lord showed me: And behold, a man standing on a adamantine wall, and in his hand a diamond. And the Lord said to me: What do you see, Amos? And I said: A diamond. And the Lord said to me: Behold, I will cast a diamond in the midst of my people Israel. I will no longer pass by him, and the altars of laughter will be scattered, and the sacrifices of Israel will be desolate, and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. Before we discuss adamante, which Symmachus and the Septuagint translated as Enach in Hebrew, it should be briefly stated that this word was translated by Aquila as γάνωσιν and by Theodotion as τηκόμενον: the former meaning tinning, the latter meaning rotting; like that frying pan (which we read about in Ezekiel 4) where the siege of the people is symbolized, is also referred to as frixura (or signetur), both in the ten tribes and in the kingdom of Jeroboam (who was the grandson of Jehu, under whom this prophecy is seen) in 2 Kings 1, by the term stannaturae. Therefore the Lord is seen standing on the top of a wall made of tin or lead, and in his hand is a trowel or a mason's tray, with which walls are usually covered, and not only to receive beauty, but also strength against the damage of rain and frequent storms. We read in Ezekiel (Chapter XIII) that the Lord threatens that when a storm and hail arise, it will by no means harm or cover the wall of Israel, but will let it be scattered by the rain. And now the one of whom it is written says: He will be called the Builder of the wall, the cornerstone, the builder of the house, who will place a measuring line in the midst of his people Israel, and will make them cease and be dormant, so that he will no longer bring upon them the burden and will clothe and protect them with his help. And when the Lord withdraws his protection, and, so to speak, removes the covering of the wall, then the high places of the idols, which are called Bamoth in Hebrew, will be demolished, and the holy places of the ten tribes will be desolated, so that Dan and Bethel will be destroyed, where the golden calves were worshiped. We have said that as much as we were able, we shall tell what has been handed down to us from the Hebrews according to history. Let us move on to the anagoge, from Xenocrates, who writes a few words about the nature of stones and precious gems: 'The diamond is a stone of its own name, which we can call indomitable in Latin: because it yields to no material, not even to iron. For if it is placed on an anvil and struck with a strong blow of a hammer, the anvil and hammer receive a wound before the diamond is crushed.' And when fire consumes everything and consumes all metals, it makes adamant harder, so that not even the excessive force can dull a small corner of it. I have seen a diamond in gold the size of a thousand millia: and while gold nearby is consumed by long use and excessive age, the diamond alone is not worn down, and no file can diminish it: on the contrary, it wears down the file, and whatever it touches, it leaves a mark. This stone is the hardest and most untameable, yet it is dissolved by the blood of goats alone, and when placed in warm blood, it loses its strength. But he is small and unseemly, having a rusty color and the brilliance of crystal. Four kinds of diamonds are described. The first is Indian; the second is Arabic; the third is Macedonian; the fourth is Cyprian, possessing varying degrees of hardness depending on the quality of the regions. It is also said to detect poisons and resist the evil arts, similar to amber. Such is our Lord and Savior: who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in human form: he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2). Of whom Isaiah writes: He has no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53:2). This refers to Christ standing on the adamant wall, that is, on his holy apostles, whom he enabled to be called adamant and to say that they were not overcome by anyone, asking, 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?' tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? And again: I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. VIII, 35 seqq.). And even Peter, who was the strongest diamond, the gates of hell did not prevail against him (Matt. XVI). Here is a man and Lord, who stands upon an adamant wall, holding in his hand an adamant, which unless held by the hand of God and aided by his help, loses all strength, as the Lord says in the Gospel: No one can snatch them out of my Father's hand (John 10:29). And he is so strong that it can be said to him: If you pass through fire, the flame will not burn you (Isaiah 43:2). And the more he is beaten by temptations, the stronger he becomes, and he delights in the name of the Savior amidst the lashes. And since it cannot be overcome by anyone, it is dissolved by the heat of deadly lust alone. For this is said to be the nature of the blood of goats and of the goat itself, that it is very hot for lust, and what fire cannot tame, only its blood dissolves. Therefore, the Lord places such a diamond in the midst of his people Israel, and it does not pass beyond it, nor does he allow the altars, which are worthy of ridicule and mockery, to be destroyed, and he may strike down with the sword all the mysteries of the heretics and the household of Jeroboam, who first separated the people of God, and overthrow them.

(Verses 10 onwards) And Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, 'Amos has rebelled against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos says: 'Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive from their own land.'' Then Amaziah said to Amos 'You seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah. There eat bread, and prophesy there. But never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the royal residence.'' LXX: And Amasias sent priests from Bethel to Jeroboam, the king of Israel, saying: Amos is gathering groups against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land cannot endure all his words. For Amos says: Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will be led captive out of its own land. And Amasias said to Amos: You see, go forth and depart (or go) to the land of Judah, and there live and prophesy there; but do not continue to prophesy in Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary and the house of the kingdom. The proverb of Solomon, or rather the commandment, is: Do not argue with the bad, lest they hate you (Prov. IX, 8): And on the contrary, he has commanded about the good: Argue with the wise, and they will love you. In another place also: Whoever rebukes, he says, the ways of a person, will have more favor than the one who speaks what is pleasing (Prov. XXVIII, 23). Therefore, even Amos spoke to the people with the desire for correction, and he threatened terrible things from the words of God, so that those who repent would return to God and forsake idols. Then the priest of Bethel, where the golden calf was, whom Jeroboam the son of Nebat had made (3 Kings 12), and others who had succeeded him in power, sent to Jeroboam the grandson of Jehu, to inform him, saying: Amos has rebelled against you, and he is making assemblies and gatherings in the midst of your kingdom, Israel, and he speaks so boldly that the land of your kingdom cannot bear his words. Yet he dares to send to the king of Israel as if he were a high priest, fearing that if the people turn to the worship of God, he will lose his priesthood glory. And when he has heard the two, the high places will be demolished with idols, whether it is the laughter of altars or the sanctifications, or the ceremonies of Israel will be desolated, and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword, because the idols are completely destroyed, over which Amaziah the priest presided, and may God rise up against Jeroboam with the sword, unless he repents: for he does not command harm from his own, but rather he seems to grieve only at the insult to the king. For, Amos says, these things are spoken. You are mistaken, slanderer. In all his words, he does not speak as if he were a prophet himself, but always prefaces them with: Thus says the Lord. Therefore, he recalls that Amos the prophet has spoken, in order to provoke the king to seek vengeance. What did Amos say? Jeroboam will die by the sword. And in this, you are lying: for he did not say, 'he will die'; for if he had said this, it seemed that he did not take repentance upon himself; rather, the Lord will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword: threatening punishment, not imposing it. He said not, In the sword shall Jeroboam die, but, I will arise in the sword over the house of Jeroboam. For Jeroboam indeed is not dead by the sword, but his house, that is, the son of Zacharias, was destroyed by God's striking. And Israel, he said, shall be carried away captive out of his own land: add also the rest, if he does not repent. Moreover, Jeroboam, despising the empty commands of Amos, did not want to respond to what he had commanded: hence he assumes for himself the authority of the priestly office, and speaks to Amos: Thou seest, go: flee into the land of Judah. The prophets, as we have often said, were formerly called seers, because they saw with the eyes of their heart the things that were going to happen. Let the wise reader ask why he calls the seer a prophet and forces him to come out of the land of Israel? To this, one must respond: either he says it in mockery, suggesting that he lies about everything; or because he saw that there were many people who gladly listened to him. This is why he reported to the king, 'Amos is conspiring against you.' He does not dare to openly commit an injustice, lest he appear to harm those who listen to him. Go, he said, to the land of Judah, where you were born, where the insane are gladly heard: and eat your bread there, or live there, or certainly practice your craft by which you can find food for yourself, and prophesy there, for you have many whom you are accustomed to deceive. But in Bethel, where I am the priest, you shall no longer add to prophesy, for it is the sanctification of the king and the house of the kingdom. And this false priest speaks as if flattering the royal authority, so as not to say: the sanctification is of our God and the house of the idol; but of the king and the house of the kingdom: all those who worship false gods have this custom, that they attribute their pride to kings, and what they themselves do, seems to have been done by the king. All that we have interpreted about Amasias, Jeroboam, Israel, and Amos must be referred to heretics in a rhetorical manner: of whom the priest Amasias sometimes sends to the heretical king Jeroboam, and accuses the heretical patron and holy men and preachers of faith before him, and orders the teachers not to preach in Israel or go against the will of the king; because Bethel, that is, the house of God, and the false Church, is the sanctification of the king and the house of the kingdom. For they are wont to say: 'The Emperor communicates to us, and if anyone resists them, they immediately accuse them: so are you acting against the Emperor? Do you despise the commands of Augustus?' And yet, let us consider that many Christian kings, who persecuted the Church of God, and endeavored to establish Arian impiety throughout the whole world, surpass in wickedness Jeroboam, the king of Israel. For he despised the commands of the false priest and did not want to respond to his suggestion. But they, along with many of their fellow Amasian priests, killed the prophet Amos and the priests of the Lord with hunger and shortage, imprisonments and exiles.

(v. 14 onwards) And Amos answered and said to Amaziah, 'I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet, but I am a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me (the Vulgate adds 'the Lord'): Go, prophesy to my people Israel. Now hear the word of the Lord: You say, 'Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of idolatry.' Therefore thus says the Lord: 'Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by a measuring line; and you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.' LXX: And Amos answered, and said to Amasiah: I was not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I gathered sycamore fruit ((or: a kind of wild fruit)), and the Lord took me from among the flock, and the Lord said to me: Go, and prophesy to my people Israel, and now hear the word of the Lord: you say, Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Jacob. Therefore, thus says the Lord: Your wife will commit adultery in the city, and your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword, and your land will be divided by a measuring line, and you will die in an unclean land; but Israel will be led captive from their own land. The Scripture recounts this which the blessed apostles did when the Scribes and Pharisees forbade them to teach in the name of Jesus; and they responded, saying: It is necessary to obey God rather than men. (Acts 4:16) We also know that the prophet Amos did this, who, being forbidden by the high priest of idols, prophesied in Bethel; he not only prophesied, but also showed that he feared God more by sending him, than by prohibiting him; and boldly and freely he himself denounced the punishment that he had tried to forbid and hinder the word of God. Not only, he said, am I not a prophet, or was not (one of whom is of humility, the other of truth) nor the son of a prophet, nor descended from the prophetic lineage; but when I was a shepherd and was pasturing the herds in the meadows, the Lord took me following the flocks. For the term 'shepherd,' which is called 'Bocer' in Hebrew, Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion, and the fifth edition translated it as 'herdsman,' who pastures herds; not sheep. The Seventy alone have called him 'shepherd' (αἰπόλον), who is properly the shepherd of goats, from the αἰπολία (the high country), which of course means a flock that grazes in high places, showing that herds of goats always climb steep rocks and lofty heights. But since he continues: 'And the Lord hath brought me forth from the sheep' (ἐκ τῶν προβάτων), he seems to suggest sheep more than goats, although in the beginning we read in Leviticus that sheep and goats are designated by the name of cattle. For thus the Lord speaks. If someone offers from the sheep, that is, from the flock, to the Lord a lamb or a kid, and a sheep or a goat (Leviticus 1:10). Furthermore, what he says, 'plucking mulberries', which Aquila interpreted as 'inspecting sycomores', and Symmachus, having sycomores, some have explained it in such a way that 'mulberries' are understood to be a type of tree that grows in the plains of Palestine, and they bring forth wild figs if they are not plucked, which become extremely bitter and are infected by mosquitoes. But for us, since the solitude in which Amos stayed does not produce any such tree, it seems more fitting to say brambles, which cause delay and provide consolation for the hunger and scarcity of the shepherds. However the reader wishes to understand it, it must be said that the Lord took on a humble and rustic shepherd, and sent him to his people Israel, and commanded him to go out from his land and journey to Samaria, and there prophesy about what is to come. Therefore, as the Lord said, you tell me, Amos: Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not drop dew upon the house of idols. Listen to what the Lord threatens against you. Concerning the house of idols, it is written in Hebrew as Beth Isaac, that is, the house of laughter (for Isaac is interpreted as laughter), which the Septuagint translated as the house of Jacob, substituting one name for another and not understanding the meaning. Again, where it says, 'Do not drop dew,' Symmachus interpreted it as 'Do not rebuke.' But to drip prophets, the language of the Scriptures is: that they do not pour out all of God's wrath at once, but rather proclaim it in small drops. Therefore, because you have said to me, 'You will not prophesy; your wife will fornicate in the city,' which Symmachus has interpreted better as 'she will be prostituted,' not that she will commit fornication herself, but that she will endure prostitution inflicted by others in a passive manner. However, it is a great pain and an incredible disgrace when a husband, in the midst of the city and in the presence of everyone, cannot prevent harm to his wife. Your sons and your daughters, he says, will also fall by the sword. There is not as much pain in a raped daughter as there is in a polluted wife, nor is there as much pain in a wife who is killed as there is in slaughtered sons. For a husband would rather hear of his wife being killed than being defiled. And this is not enough for him to feel wronged, unless his land is also divided by enemies with a rope and receives new cultivators. Even Amaziah himself, who now boasts in the power of the priesthood, will not die in his own land, but will be led captive and die in a land polluted by idols, and he will not die until he sees the people he deceived serving and captive. According to allegory, Amasias the priest is interpreted as strong and rigid ((or cold)), because he forbids the rebellious and fierce ecclesiastical man and true prophet from speaking the words and teaching of God and correcting the erring people. His wife, the false Church, will openly engage in fornication with everyone. And his sons and daughters, whom he has generated badly in error, will be struck by the sword of the Lord. His land and all his possessions will also be a portion of demons, and he himself will die in a defiled land that does not have the indwelling of God, but is contaminated by the errors of a corrupt religion, and every people who assumes a false name for itself, Israel, will migrate as captives from their land, so that they do not serve God, but submit their necks to the yoke of heretics and demons.

(Chapter 8, verses 1 and following) This is what the Lord God showed me: Behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, 'Amos, what do you see?' And I said, 'A basket of summer fruit.' Then the Lord said to me, 'The end has come upon my people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,' declares the Lord God. 'Many shall be the dead bodies, cast out in every place. Silence!' LXX: This is what the Lord God showed me: Behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, What do you see, Amos? And I said, A bird trap. And the Lord said to me: The end is coming upon my people Israel; I will no longer pass by them. The ceilings of the temple will wail on that day, says the Lord God. Many will fall; I will bring silence to every place. Just as Jeremiah sees with the staff of the watchmen, or the nut, because he watched over the sins of his people, so now Amos looks upon Judah and Israel together under the guise of a hook, which in Hebrew is called Chelub and is translated as a bird trap by the Septuagint; since the bird catcher is properly called Moces, as we read earlier in this same prophet: If a bird falls to the ground without a bird catcher. And the sense is this: Just as the branches of trees are drawn towards the apples to be picked, so I have drawn near the time of captivity. And so that we may know that this is what we say, God himself interprets what the vision, which the prophets had shown, signifies. The end has come upon my people Israel. And what follows: I will not pass through him anymore, signifies that he will no longer pass through the iniquities of his people, nor neglect them, nor allow their crimes to go unpunished. And not only does it seem to be said about the ten tribes, it also says: The hinges of the temple will creak, or the rafters on that day, says the Lord. But this must be understood with great excess, because such a heavy burden of evils is looming: that even the hinges of the doors themselves and the lofty rafters will howl, and they will feel an incredible devastation: when many will die, and with the inhabitants captured or killed, silence will be thrown everywhere. But if we want to read the vase of the bird-catcher instead of the hook of the apples, it must be said that just as bird-catchers attract flying birds through the air with birdlime or nets, and when they are soaring higher they pull them down to the ground, so God through Sennacherib or Nebuchadnezzar, whom we now understand as bird-catchers, first captured, bound, transferred, and killed his own free people, whom he had previously elevated through obedience to the Law. For nets are not unjustly stretched out for birds. And this is not only to be referred to the time of the captivity of Babylon, but also to the coming of the Lord Savior, when they said: Take away such a one from the earth: crucify him, crucify him (John 19:15), and they destroyed the wings of the dove. And the end came upon them, and the final captivity, and the Lord did not spare them. And the hinges of the temple wailed, or the ceilings of the temple, falling upon the slain people. And in every place there was silence, with the Jews having Moses and the Prophets, and those without the Word of God: reading the letter, and losing the spirit, when their table became a snare, and a retribution, and a ruin, and their eyes were blinded so that they could not see, and their ears were stopped so that they could not hear; and their backs were bent so that they could not look up to heaven, but rather always lay on the ground like that woman in the Gospel who had a spirit of infirmity (Mark 7), and their ears were stopped so that they could not hear; and their backs were bent so that they could not look up to heaven, but rather always lay on the ground like that woman in the Gospel who had a spirit of infirmity. And the anger of God was poured out upon them, and the fury of his wrath caught hold of them, so that their habitation became deserted, and in their tents there was no inhabitant: for when the time was fulfilled, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send a famine upon the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord (Hosea, ch. 4, v. 11) : of which, if we shall have arrived at the end, more fully is to be explained. Therefore, seeing this, that God spared not the natural branches, let us fear that the same may happen to us, and let us avoid the snares of the fowler; and let us say to the Lord: Be not silent, neither be thou still, O God, and depart not from me; lest being like unto them that go down into the pit (Psalm 27:1). In the whole world there has fallen a stupor of the Jewish people: wherever they are, they are the mute and dumb images of what they used to be. Blaspheming against Christ, they invoke a malediction in their synagogues and in their prayers. That their interpretation of the Scriptures may find no entrance anywhere, what new thing is said by them that have no faith? For they bore witness to what they understood not; and like human beings, they rendered judgment as diviners.

(V. 4, seqq.) Listen to this, you who crush the poor and make the needy of the earth fail, saying: When the month passes, we will sell our goods, and on the Sabbath, we will open the granary to decrease the measure and increase the weight; we will use deceitful scales to possess the poor in silver and sell the refuse of wheat. LXX: Listen to this, you who crush the poor in the morning and oppress the needy from the land, saying: When the month passes, we will trade and on the Sabbath, we will open the granary to make the measure smaller and the weight greater; we will use dishonest scales to possess the poor in money and the needy for shoes, and we will engage in every sale. Let the hook of the apples not appear in vain, and let the vessel of the bird catcher be shown, and through these things, the impending captivity is briefly described as the cause of offense to God. Oh, you Juda, oh you Israel, hear the crimes you have committed, rising in the night, for prayer and hymns to God: you have the zeal to oppress or crush the poor, so that they, consumed by hunger and poverty, may be taken from the land. You who wait for the new moon to engage in business, and increase interest on loans, and open your storehouses on the Sabbath, and give more grain in return, and turn the sacred festivals of God into sordid profits for your own gain: you who make the measure smaller when selling goods, and use heavier weights when receiving, and use unfair scales in order to possess the money of the poor, and hold people in such low regard that you fulfill what was said above about you: Because you sold the just for silver, and the poor for shoes: you have leaped into such greed for profit that you sell to the poor not the grain which sustains human bodies, but the refuse and chaff of the grain, mixing dust and bran. Indeed, we sometimes see even perverse teachers and rulers, who dominate the clergy without the fear of God, of whom Jeremiah speaks: Their shepherds have not benefited them (Jer. XII, 13, LXX), making a profit out of piety. They sit in the temple like moneychangers, not in cages but in seats as if they were masters, selling the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They give a smaller and larger measure to the poor, either too little or nothing at all, but to the rich and those from whom they seek profit, they speak with lengthy sermons like preachers. And for the sake of money, they crush the heads of the poor and trample on them, not offering them the Lord's grain that strengthens the heart of man, but rather feeding them scraps and the cheapest dust with eager mouths. They even sell things that are worthless, despite the fact that the Lord commanded his apostles, 'Freely you have received, freely give' (Matt. X, 8).

(Verse 7, 8.) The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble concerning this, and every inhabitant mourn? And it shall rise up wholly like the River, and it shall be driven out and fall like the River of Egypt. Septuagint: The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will not forget all your works forever. And the land shall not be shaken because of this, and every inhabitant shall mourn, and it shall rise up like a consuming River, and it shall fall like the River of Egypt. The Scripture describes God swearing repeatedly. First in Genesis: the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven, saying: 'By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord: because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore' (Genesis 22:16-17). And in the 109th Psalm: The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek' (Psalm 110:4). Now, whoever it is that wrote the letter to the Hebrews, discussing it says: Since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself (Heb. 6:13). And in this same prophet above we read: The Lord swore in his sanctuary, or by his sanctuary: because behold days shall come upon you and they will take you away in arms, or spears, and the rest. Therefore, he who had sworn previously in his sanctuary, or by his sanctuary, now swears against the pride of Jacob: so that if they do not believe the one threatening, they may believe the one swearing in human likeness: who assumes an oath at that time when trust is not placed in their simple words. It is not surprising, therefore, if God is said to swear, when he sleeps with those who sleep, and watches over those who are awake: and it is said that he is angry with those who have stored up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath (Rom. II) . He swears that he will not forget their works until the end; for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (Jacob. IV) ; but let them remember all the sins they have committed, and bring them to the end and the time of judgment. Hence, those who repent ((or endure patiently)) pray: Do not remember our old iniquities (Psal. LXXVIII, 8) , especially when the earth itself is moved and disturbed against the proud, not the tenant or stranger, but its inhabitant: and let the completion rise like a river, and let it descend like the river of Egypt: so that those who repent may ascend with the rising river: but those who persist in their sins may descend like the river of Egypt, and be swallowed up by the sea. And by this, it is shown that the pride of Jacob, against which the Lord swears, is to be devoured by eternal punishments.

(Verse 9, 10.) And it shall come to pass on that day, says the Lord (Vulgate adds God): The sun will be darkened at noon, and I will make the earth go dark in the midst of light. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation. I will bring sackcloth upon every waist, and baldness upon every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day. LXX: And it shall come to pass on that day, says the Lord God: the sun will be darkened at noon, and darkness will come over the earth in the midst of light. I will turn your festivals into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation. I will bring sackcloth upon every loins, and baldness upon every head. I will make it like the mourning for a beloved one, and those who are with him like a day of sorrow.


That day, which is called the day of captivity, signifies the day when both peoples will be led into Assyria and Chaldea, where the sun will set at noon due to the magnitude of sadness, and clear light will fill everything, while darkness will envelop all. On that day, their festivities and all their songs will be turned into mourning and lamentation. And they will wear sackcloth on their backs or loins, and according to the custom of ancient mourners, they will have baldness on their heads, which we also read that Job did for the deaths of his children (Job 1). And so great will be the magnitude of mourning and sadness, that it will overcome the grief of a mother and a most beloved only son dying: and all things will be filled with lamentation and bitterness. We can understand this place also in the Passion of the Lord, when the sun withdrew its rays at the sixth hour, and the one not daring to look at his hanging Lord on the cross. (Luke 23): when darkness filled all things, and their festivities and songs, surpassing Vespasian and Titus, were transformed into mourning and sorrow: when all things were filled with tears, penitence, and sackcloth, and they had bald heads, who previously adorned their hair in the Nazarene style, nourished for the Lord. Then the firstborn Son of God, the people of Israel, who had extended their hand to the Only Begotten and true Son of God, was handed over to eternal mourning: and his last moments, along with those who were with him, were filled with bitterness. Now, those who rejected the sun of justice are left in darkness: we, who were sitting in the shadow of death, have seen a great light (Isaiah 9), and all their festivities have been transferred to the mysteries of the Church, so that, while they weep, we may sing praises to the Lord. They are girded with ropes and cilices: for us it is said with the apostles: Let your loins be girded ((or girt)), and lamps burning in your hands (Luke 12:35). We are girded with the truth of Christ, fulfilling that which is written: Stand fast therefore in the truth, girding your loins with truth (Ephesians 6:14). But they, on the other hand, are surrounded by the lie of the devil for the sake of truth. Our head, of whom the Savior speaks: But the very hairs of your head are all numbered (Matthew 10:30), has perpetual hair, and in our head, which is Christ, we possess strength to slay the lion. But they slept in the concubine's synagogue, and their hair was cut off by the devil, losing the power of their heads, losing their eyes with their strength, about whom it is written in Ecclesiastes: The eyes of the wise are in their head; but the fool walks in darkness. Their companions are in mourning, our companions are clothed in garments of joy.

(Verse 11, 12) Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send forth (Vulgate: send) a famine upon the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. In that day, the fair virgins and young men shall faint for thirst. Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria, and say, 'As your god, Dan, lives,' and, 'As the way of Beersheba lives,' they shall fall and never rise again. LXX: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And the waters shall be stirred up from the sea to the sea, and from the north to the east they shall go to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. In that day, the fair virgins and young men shall faint with thirst, those who swear by the sin of Samaria and say: As your god lives, O Dan, and as your god lives, O Bersabee. And they shall fall, and not rise again. In Hebrew, there are no waters, and 'propitiatio,' which we translate as forgiveness, and in Hebrew is called 'Asamath', signifies idol: which is the beginning of sins. The old story tells, both in Latin and Greek, and of all barbarian nations, nothing is harsher than hunger, which often compels the besieged to feed on human flesh, and to act according to their cruel nature: so that even parents do not spare their young children, and the marital affection tears apart the limbs of the beloved wife who was once loved. If hunger of bodies causes this, what should be said about the hunger of souls? which on the day of the resurrection of the Lord oppressed the people of the Jews, and joined with the most burning hunger, the thirst of those who do not have the bread that descends from heaven, and those waters that flowed from the belly of Jesus. The Law has been taken away from them, and the Prophets have fallen into eternal silence: they move from sea to sea, and from the British Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, that is, from the West to the South, and from the North to the East, foreigners throughout the whole world, are unable to find the word of God. In what place shall we ask the Jews where they think that day signifies, in which they endure the hunger of hearing the word of God: especially when they read the Scriptures and follow the humility of the letters? To them we suggest that the predicted hunger is spiritual understanding, in which Christ is seen, the passion of the Lord is found and the resurrection is discovered. They go around the world and seek the word of the Lord, and do not find it: because they have denied the Word of the Lord, which was done in the hands of all the prophets, which was in the beginning with the Father, which was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John I). At that time, beautiful virgins and young men, both chosen and educated (for this is what 'Baurim' signifies), became scarce due to thirst. The beautiful virgins represent the synagogues, and the chosen ones represent the teachers of the people. When they became scarce, they taught that the curses of Deuteronomy were fulfilled among the Jewish people (Deut. XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX). These chosen ones and teachers swore by the idol of Samaria, namely the golden calves, and said: 'May your God, Dan, live in the borders of the land of Judah, where Paneas is now, and at that time the golden calf was worshipped there. And may your way, Bersabee, live, for they rarely traveled there due to its long and difficult journey, both the just and unjust kings of Judah.' And because they have done this, therefore they shall fall down, and shall not rise again, that is, they shall not regain the state which they had before. But the Lord sends famine into the land over those who are earthly-minded: and it is not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord, when because of the sins of the people the teaching fails in the Churches. And from sea to sea, that is, from the salty and most bitter waves to the sea they reach: not encountering rivers, not sweetest and various springs, but again flowing toward bitter things. And from the North to the East, desiring to abandon the North (which is the most harsh wind and is called the right one by the ignorant) and to reach the East, which they will not be able to find, because they do not travel in a straight path, but wander on winding paths, and not holding to the royal road, they are led astray by crooked windings. At that time the souls of virgins would fail, whom the Apostle calls incorrupt: and he desires them to possess eternal chastity, writing to the Corinthians: For I have espoused you to one man, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest as the serpent seduced Eve by his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted, and fall from the simplicity that is in Christ (II Cor. X, 2, 3). And if all virgins were beautiful or good, he would never have said that good virgins would fail; but he placed good virgins in contrast to bad ones, who are holy in body and spirit. There are five foolish virgins who did not prepare oil for their lamps (Matthew 23). But those are good and beautiful virgins who had the light of virtues and entered the bridegroom's chamber. But the virgins will fail because they will not find the word of the Lord. From this we understand that when there is no teaching in the Churches, chastity will perish, purity will die, and all virtues will depart, because they have not eaten the word of the Lord. Whoever eats it will be satisfied, as Solomon says: The righteous person satisfies his soul, but the souls of the wicked will be hungry (Proverbs 13:2). And David, who reached old age, freely sang: I was young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging for bread (Psalm 37:25). How many martyrs perished of hunger in persecutions and lacked the sustenance of these bodies? Therefore, about the bread that comes down from heaven, it is said that whoever eats it will neither hunger nor thirst. With the virgins failing, the young men will also fail, those who had previously conquered the world. And they will fail because they swear by the idol of Samaria, which we always understand to be in the person of heretics, as the same prophet says: Woe to those who despise Zion and rely on the mountain of Samaria (Amos 6:1). For heretics despise the Church of God and rely on the falsehood of their teachings, raising themselves against the knowledge of God, dividing His people, and saying: We have no share in David, no inheritance in the son of Jesse (1 Kings 12:16). If anyone swears by the sin of Samaria and says, 'As the Lord lives, Dan, and as the way of Beersheba lives,' that person will fall and will not rise again. Dan could not find a possession in the last borders of Judah, as it is written in the book of Judges (Judges 18), and it is interpreted as judgement. And Beersheba, due to the variation of accents, is translated into our language as 'well of the oath' or 'well of satisfaction' or 'well of the seventh.' Therefore, heretics at the ends of the holy Scriptures thirst, despising the judgement of God and desiring the way of Beersheba, which was in the tribe of Judah. And desiring to imitate many sacraments of the Church, they claim to be satisfied and filled. To them, the Apostle Paul reproaches: Already you are satisfied, already you have become rich (1 Corinthians 4:8), and they swear in the name of the Lord, who once fell because they regarded their idols as their god and will not rise again. But those who want to repent and do not say, 'As the Lord lives, Dan, and as the way of Beersheba lives,' will hear through Jeremiah: Can one who falls not rise again? Or one who turns away not return? (Jeremiah 8:4).

(Chapter 9, Verse 1) I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said: Strike the hinge, and let the thresholds tremble: for greed is at the head of all, and with the sword I will kill their last one. There will be no escape for them: they will flee, and no one who flees will be saved. LXX: I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said: Strike upon the mercy seat, and the vestibules will be shaken: and scatter upon the heads of all, and with the sword I will kill the rest of them. He shall not flee from those who flee; and he shall not be saved from those who are saved. He who, with Ezekiel and John the Baptist, has seen the heavens opened (Ezek. I; Mat. III), and the veil that was placed before the face of Moses (Exod. XXXIV), has been taken away from his eyes, so that what is written may be fulfilled: The commandment of God is a clear light illuminating the eyes (Ps. XVIII, 9); this person will see the Lord standing upon the altar, and commanding the prophet, or, as many believe, the angel who is bound to administer the punishments for sins, to strike the hinges of the temple, or the mercy seat, and cause its lintels or vestibules to tremble. And when, he says, the temple has been dissolved and destroyed because of the wickedness of men, and my wrath has begun from my sanctuary, let everyone recognize that they cannot escape, with greed possessing all things, and that their final end is death, and no defenses can help them escape the judgment of God: and what we read according to the Septuagint, that he dispersed it among the heads of all, their heads are beautifully divided, who by their own choice have separated themselves from him who is the head of all, and have said: We have no king except Caesar (John 19:15), who with impious voice cried out: Crucify, crucify such a one. And: His blood be upon us, and upon our children. All of these things we can refer to the heretics, whose altar is struck, and all initiations and sacraments are profaned, who have greed in their heads, with the partridge crying out through them, and gathering those whom she did not bring forth, and making riches without judgment (Jer. XVII). Therefore, the Lord will also destroy his final remains or relics, so that the begun chapter may be completed, and his end will be foolish. But when the Lord strikes the hinges and wields his sword against them, there will be no one who can escape or deflect the impending sword of the Lord. And at the same time, it should be noted that, while the Lord is standing on the altar, the propitiatory or hinges of the temple are struck first, then the vestibules are shaken, thirdly the heads of all are divided, and fourthly those who remain are killed with the sword. For unless the Lord tramples the arrogance of heretics with his foot and strikes their perverse and wicked doctrine with the spiritual sword, and divides their masters, who are accepted as leaders, among themselves, and strikes them in a good way, the disciples cannot be brought to life, according to what is written: I will kill and give life: I will strike and heal (Deut. XXXII, 39). The teachers are killed and beaten so that the students may live: the heads are divided so that the other members may be healed.

(Vers. 2 seqq.) If they descend to the depths, my hand will bring them up from there. And if they ascend to heaven, I will bring them down from there. And if they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, I will search and take them from there. And if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, I will command the serpent to bite them. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, I will command the sword to kill them. I will set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good. And the Lord, the God of hosts, who touches the earth and it withers, and all who dwell in it mourn, and it rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the river of Egypt. Seventy: If they are buried in Sheol, from there my hand will pluck them up; and if they ascend to heaven, from there I will bring them down. If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them; and if they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good. And the Lord God Almighty, who touches the earth and shakes it, and all its inhabitants will mourn, and their end will come like a flood, and their downfall like the river of Egypt. He who said before, there will be no escape for them, now cuts off their escape into separate parts, and hyperbolically testifies that even if they do this and that, they will not be able to escape. If they descend to the depths, he says, my hand will bring them out from there: not because anyone is able to be pulled back from the depths before the day of resurrection, but because even those in the depths are under His power. We learn that what was foretold about Dathan and Abiron has come to pass, whom the gaping earth swallowed up while they were still alive (Numbers 16). And if they were to ascend, it is said, even to the heavens, I will bring them down from there; for Enoch and Elijah, taken up with their bodies into heaven (Genesis 5; 2 Kings 4), are governed by the will of God. Consider the different realms: we descend to hell, we ascend to heaven; we are brought forth from hell, we are brought down from heaven. In the former, there is extreme despair; in the latter, there is the greatness of pride. If they should hide in the summit of Carmel, or near the borders of Phoenicia in the northern region, or towards the south due to the vastness of the desert, where Nabal the Carmelite used to live (1 Samuel 25), then, he says, I will search and take them away: and if they attempt to avoid the eyes of God in the depths of the sea (Jonah 1), or as I speak of the prophet, in Tarshish, there I will command the serpent, which here signifies Leviathan or a whale, to come against the enemies through the serpent and the whale. And he will bite them, that is, he will devour them with his jaws. And lest we feel any captivity from the enemies through the things he said above, Scripture opens up what he had previously said in riddles. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them, so that they may not think of the end of their evils as servitude; but let the hostile sword also pierce the captured ones: and those who are able to survive and escape death, may not escape the gaze of God, but he shall set his eyes upon them for evil, and not for good, so that he may always visit them and compel them to penance through torments. And the almighty God declares that He will do these things, at whose touch and command the foundations of the earth are shaken or decay, and all its inhabitants are filled with weeping and mourning. He speaks these words to show the magnitude of His divine power, not that He actually desires to do what He threatens; for His powers do not fulfill His will. But if the earth decays or trembles, even insensible nature perceives its Creator; how much more so does man, a fragile creature whose spiritual treasure is enclosed in earthen and corporeal vessels? And just as the river of Egypt flows into the sea and is sucked up, so too the land of Israel, of which it was said above: Whoever touches the land and decays, shall go into captivity and be devoured by enemies; in a metaphorical sense, what is possessed emerges from what is possessed, as indicated by divine speech. And we have interpreted these things in accordance with the order of the following history, as best we could, although our understanding may have failed in some instances. Furthermore, David explains the entire extent of this place, saying: Lord, you have tested me and you know me (Ps. 139:1). And immediately he adds: Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your face? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn and settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me; your right hand will hold me fast (cf. Ps 139:7-10). In Deuteronomy, we read something similar: This commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?' (cf. Deut 30:11-12). Nor is it placed beyond the sea, so that you may say: Who will go across the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it, but the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it (Deuteronomy XXX, 11, 12). For when the soul, released from the bodily bonds, has the freedom to fly wherever it wishes or is compelled to go, due to its subtle substance, will it be led to the underworld (of which it is written: Let sinners be turned into hell, all the nations that forget God (Psalm IX, 18)). And, in hell, who will confess to you? (Psalm 6:6) And, your glory descended into hell. (Psalm 48:18) Certainly, he will be lifted up to heavenly things, where spiritual wickedness is in the heavens, and if he desires to claim the knowledge of true circumcision, for this is interpreted as Carmelus, and with contempt for humility, he will dwell in the mountains, and there he will not be able to escape the searching hand of God. But if, in despair of salvation, he attempts to avoid the eyes of the Lord and reaches the furthest boundaries of false waves, even there the Lord will command the twisted and ancient serpent (Revelation 20), who is the enemy and avenger, and he will bite her. Also, she will be punished by the sword of the Lord for her vices and sins, and He will set His eyes upon her for evil, not for good, so that through torture and punishment she may return to the Lord. And when Almighty God touches their land and shakes it, and causes all earthly things to wither, understanding their crimes, they will turn to mourning, and the Lord Himself will ascend and descend twofold. He will ascend over the saints like a river of consummation, that is, of the earth, in order to consume their earthly works. He will descend upon sinners like the river of Egypt, so that they may be cast into the bitterness of torment by the force of the Lord.

[Daniel 7:2-3] "And during the night I saw in my vision, and behold, the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea, and four great beasts were coming up out of the sea, differing from one another." The four winds of heaven I suppose to have been angelic powers to whom the principalities have been committed, in accordance with what we read in Deuteronomy: "When the Most High divided the nations and when He separated the children of Adam, He established the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the angels. For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the line of His inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:8). But the sea signifies this world and the present age, overwhelmed with salty and bitter waves, in accordance with the Lord's own interpretation of the dragnet cast into the sea (Matthew 13:47-50). Hence also the sovereign of all creatures that inhabit the waters is described as a dragon, and his heads, according to David, are smitten in the sea (Psalm 74:13). And in Amos we read: "If he descends to the very depth of the sea, there will I give him over to the dragon and he shall bite him" (Amos 9:3). But as for the four beasts who came up out of the sea and were differentiated from one another, we may identify them from the angel's discourse. "These four great beasts," he says, "are four kingdoms which shall rise up from the earth." And as for the four winds which strove in the great sea, they are called winds of heaven because each one of the angels does for his realm the duty entrusted to him. This too should be noted, that the fierceness and cruelty of the kingdoms concerned are indicated by the term "beasts."

(Verse 6.) He who builds his ascent in heaven and establishes his foundation on earth: he who calls the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name. LXX: He who builds his ascent in heaven and establishes his promise on earth: he who calls the water of the sea and pours it out upon the face of the earth: The Lord Almighty is his name. The Lord God Almighty, who looks upon or touches the earth and moves it, is the one who daily builds his ascent in heaven and says in the Gospel: My Father is still working, and I am working as well (John 5:17). And not only did God build Eve from Adam's rib as a figure of the Church (Gen. II), but He daily builds believers and members of His body, and lifts them from the earth to heaven, so that He Himself may ascend in them. The Lord ascended into heaven with Enoch (Gen. V), ascended with Elijah (IV Kings II), ascended with Moses, whose burial place could not be found on earth because he had ascended to heaven (Deut. XXXIV). He ascended with Paul, who was a chosen vessel, and was transformed from a persecutor into an apostle (2 Cor. 12). He was caught up to the heights, so that he ascended to the third heaven, and through the Holy Spirit and the Son, he reached the Father, and heard unspeakable words, the mysteries of the Trinity, which are not lawful for humans to hear. Therefore, he who ascends daily in the holy ones, has established his bundle on the earth, of which it is said in the Gospel: Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased my Father to dwell in you (Luke 12:32). This bundle is bound together by the one religion of the Lord. From this, the religion itself received its name from being bound and united in the bundle of the Lord. Moreover, according to the Seventy, it founded its promise upon the earth so that all the promises that the holy prophets sang with their mouths may not be empty sounds and the mere names of tropology, but be poured out upon the earth. And when they have the foundations of history, then they may receive the summit of spiritual understanding: that truly Christ was born of the Virgin, truly raised Lazarus from the dead, truly healed the woman with a flow of blood at his touch, truly the blind saw upon the coming of the Lord, the lame ran, the contracted hands were extended, the leprosy was cleansed; even though according to tropology the divine word is born every day from the virginal soul, every day those dead to sin and bound by the cords of vices may be ordered to come forth from the tomb of their crimes, every day the works of blood may be restrained, the blind may see in the faith of Christ, the lame may run in the way of the Lord, and the withered hands of greed may be stretched out for almsgiving, and the leprosy of Mary, which contaminates whatever it touches, may receive its former purity (Num. 12). But this Lord also calls the most bitter waters of the sea, and pours them out upon those who have turned their faces to the Lord. He calls them bitter waters so that he may make them sweet and brings forth winds from his treasuries and commands the heavy waters to be suspended in the height with its saltiness, straining and boiling them with ethereal heat, and dispenses them as rain, and sends them down upon the face of the earth, so that dry things may be moistened by rains, and where sin has abounded, grace may superabound.

Are you not like the children of Ethiopia to me, O sons of Israel, says the Lord? Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Cappadocia, and the Syrians from Cyrene? Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth: yet will I not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord. LXX: Are you not like the children of Ethiopia to me, O sons of Israel, says the Lord? Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir? Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not completely destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord. As for Cyrene, Aquila and the fifth edition have put the Hebrew word itself, Cir (), and the Septuagint the pit, that is, βόθρον, Theodotion the wall, Symmachus Cyrene: whom we also followed in this place. I will conclude the understanding of this whole passage that I have proposed, and of all that is contained in this chapter, with a brief discourse, up to the point where it is written: Those who say, 'Evil will not come to us, and the sword will not come upon us,' so that we may know what is said: I am the Lord God Almighty, who cannot be hidden, who touches the earth and it quakes; who builds my ascension in heaven; who calls forth the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth; whose name is the Lord, who am the creator of all things: I fashioned all peoples from the same clay and generated them by an equal lot. Finally, I have brought together the Ethiopians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Jews, who are distant in location and body, under the law of mortality. I also exchange and move my slaves here and there at my own discretion, and transfer them to all provinces. Do not become proud because I led you out of Egypt and did not allow you, as my chosen people, to serve Pharaoh: I have done the same with the Palestinians, whom the Seventy foreigners transported, who are called Caphthorim in Hebrew, in order to transfer them from Cappadocia and settle them in the regions of Palestine. I also transferred the Syrians, that is, the Aramaeans, from Cyrene. From this, those who have become equal in status will be punished by the judgment of my equal justice, and I will overthrow all impious kingdoms without discrimination of persons. But you, O sons of Israel, of whom I said: My firstborn son is Israel (Exod. IV, 22). And: Out of Egypt I called my son (Hosea XII, 1), I will strike with a rod, and I will visit your sins; but I will not destroy you forever, and I will not take away my mercy from you (Ps. LXXXVIII), and like those shaken and sifted in a sieve, I will cleanse and choose, so that whoever is a stone, and strengthened by repentance, will not fall from my sieve; but whoever falls like dust to the ground, let them be struck by the sword, so that they may die, the sinners of my people, not because they have sinned before, but because they have persevered in sins until death. But everyone in Israel, who sees God with their mind and is led out of Egypt, if they desire the vices of Egypt and the delights of the world, not only return to Egypt, but also to Ethiopia, in which, according to Jeremiah (Chap. 13), they cannot change their skin; they are saved by the coming of Christ, and what is written is fulfilled in him: Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God (Psalm 68:31). And when they worship him, it will be said of them: The Ethiopians will fall before him (Psalm 72:9). Those who have fallen down and carried victims from Ethiopia across the rivers to the Lord, will be able to say: I am dark and beautiful, because the sun has made me pale (Song of Solomon 1:4). For bodies withering in shadows and idleness cannot endure the temptations and heat of the world; but those that are prepared for struggle and contests, having been dried by the sun, overcome the injustices of the world and obtain the blessing of the Holy Spirit, as it says to the just: The sun shall not scorch you by day, nor the moon by night (Psalm 121:6). Therefore, the Ethiopians are turned into the children of God, if they repent, and the children of God are turned into Ethiopians, if they have fallen into the depths of sins. For the Creator God Himself turns the Cappadocians into Palestinians, and those who were engaged in the coldness of faith, and were subjected to the harsh northerly wind, He made to fall, and having set aside their pride, they felt the judgment of the Lord. He also transferred the Syrians, that is, the lofty and sublime ones, who were called Aramaeans, from Cyrene to a weak wall, or that which threatened the most bitter sea, and was near the Syrtes, and was held in a pit next to seventy (others), into a good direction, so that He might make them lofty. For the eyes of the Lord are over all kingdoms of sin, which the devil shows to the Lord (Matthew 4), and about which the Apostle says: Sin does not reign in your mortal body, to obey its desires (Romans 6:12). However, when he visits sinners with his rod and crushes and strikes those who remain in sin, he does not allow those souls who are called the house of Jacob, who supplant sin and overcome in battle, and attack the heel of the bloody brother, to perish forever.

(Verses 9, 10.) Behold, I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations, as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will fall to the ground. All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, those who say: 'No disaster will come near or overtake us.' LXX: For behold, I will command and sift the house of Israel among all the nations, as one sifts with a sieve, and no fragment shall fall to the ground. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say: 'Evil shall not come near, nor shall any good come upon us.' God, who measures the waters with the palm of his hand, and the heavens with his span, and closes up the whole earth with his fist (Isaiah 40), he himself, by his greatness, will shake the edges of the earth to and fro like a sieve: so that the chaff and the filth of sinners falling to the ground, may leave behind pure wheat, which will be stored in the barns; or as the Septuagint translated, he will hold a fan in his hand and will cleanse his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barns, but he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire; concerning which the Lord speaks through Jeremiah: 'What has straw to do with the wheat?' (Jeremiah 23:28). Of this same thing, under the figure of another parable, that fishing-net shows, which is cast into the sea of this world, and draws forth fishes of every kind; and when the bad have been cast away, only the good are kept (Matthew 13). In the same way, the Lord has dispersed the wretched house of Israel throughout the whole world, and has shaken it in a sieve and fanned it with a winnowing fork; and the stones and pebbles not falling to the ground, those who are called sinners on account of the filth and dust shall die by the sword. And they endure this because they do not believe the prophecies of the prophets, nor do they think that the things which the Lord threatens through them will come to pass. And when they promise themselves prosperity, they will suffer evil afterwards, opposite to the saints who fear and do not sin, and therefore do not die by the sword, because they said: Evils will come near us, and punishments will come upon us, which our sins have deserved, about which God speaks more fully in Jeremiah: I will take up and speak against that nation and kingdom, to pluck up and to break down; if that nation turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it (Jer. XVIII, 7, 8). Therefore God is not changed, who is always unchangeable; but we change him by our conversion. He rages, he gets angry, he threatens, and he says that he will inflict punishment: if we repent, he too will repent of his sentence. Again, next to the same Jeremiah (Chapter XVII), he promises prosperity: if we are dissolved in negligence, he will repent of his promise and change it. We can see an example of this in Nineveh and Jerusalem, some of whom were freed from impending punishments, while others lost what had been promised to their fathers.

(Vers. 11 seqq.) In that day I will raise up the fallen tent of David, and rebuild its broken walls, and restore what has collapsed, and rebuild it as it was in ancient times, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name, declares the Lord who is doing these things. LXX: In that day I will raise up the fallen tent of David, and rebuild its broken parts, and raise up what has been buried, and restore it as in the ancient days, that they may seek me, the remnant of humanity, and all the nations over whom my name has been called, declares the Lord who is doing all these things. Where the authority of the apostles prevails, especially that of Peter and James, whom the vessel of election calls the pillars of the Church (Galatians 2), there all suspicion of various explanations is to be removed, and what is expounded by such great men is to be followed. In the book of Acts, a question arose among the apostles as to why Paul and Barnabas had received men from the Gentiles without circumcision and observance of the Sabbath. Peter answered, as he should: and James, approving his opinion, spoke these words: Men, brothers, listen to me: Simon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name, and the words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written: After this, I will return and rebuild the fallen tent of David. I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who does these things, known from of old (Acts 15:13 and following). Therefore this tabernacle of David, which had fallen (had fallen, however, among those who say, it will not come near, and no evil will come upon us: those whom the Lord had shaken and tested with His sieve, and whose threshing floor of His majesty He had purged with His winnowing fan, and all sinners He had killed with the sword), now according to the custom of the Scriptures, after tortures, after punishments, promising prosperity and joy, declares that He will raise it up, and in the resurrection of the Lord restore all things, so that what had fallen in the synagogues may rise in the Churches, and believers may possess the remnants of Edom, and all nations, so that whatever remains of the bloody and earthly kingdom may be transformed into heavenly kingdoms, and all peoples who have forgotten the Lord may be converted and return to Him. But if we want to read according to the LXX, those who are left of mankind, and all the nations upon whom my name has been invoked, we should accept as those who have believed from the Jewish people, and as those who have not fallen like a small stone from the sieve, nor have been thrown out with the dust and chaff. For the remnants will be saved at the beginning of faith, and at the end of the world, so that when the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, then all Israel will be saved (Romans 11). But the name of the Lord which is invoked above the rest and above all nations, that is what the Savior says: Father, I have revealed your name to men (John 17:6). And so that I do not delay the rule of covenants with a long discourse, and in this prophet, and in the other things whatsoever are preached about the building of Jerusalem (the walls of Jerusalem) and the temple, and the blessedness of all things, the Jews in the last time promise themselves in vain expectation, and they mention things to be fulfilled carnally. But we who do not follow the letter that kills, but the life-giving Spirit, now in the Church we are convinced of fulfillment, and every day it is fulfilled in individuals who, falling through sin, are rebuilt through repentance.

(Verse 14, 15.) Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them, says the Lord your God. LXX: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them, says the Lord your God Almighty. The raising up of the tent of David, which had fallen, and the rebuilding of what had been destroyed and overturned, is described as the abundance of all things, how those who previously went, went and wept, carrying their seeds, and those who come will come with joy, carrying their bundles; so that the threshing of the bundles may yield a harvest, whether the plowman is reaping and the grape is being gathered, and bring forth color in the time of sowing; or, more truly, that the wine presser may grasp the seed of the grape, and so all things may succeed one another, that no day may be without wheat, wine, and joy. At that time, grapes will be crushed in full winepresses, and must flowing with the blood of Christ and the martyrs will be poured out. And the one who crushes the grapes in this way will be the seedbed of the Word of God, so that their blood may cry out in the world more than the blood of Abel the just cried out. But whoever has rightfully ascended to the mountains of virtue will sweat with honey, indeed, will drip with the sweetness of the Word of God, of which it is written: 'Taste and see how good the Lord is' (Psalm 33:9), and 'How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth' (Psalm 119:103). And those who are below the mountains, or rather, second from the mountains, which the bridegroom leaps over in the Canticle of Canticles (Song of Songs), and calls hills, they will be planted and will imitate the paradise of God: so that all the fruit of doctrine may hang on them. Then if anyone is held captive by unbelief, and has not yet believed in the name of the Lord, and is from the remnants of his people, the former Israel, he will return to the faith of Christ, so that he may hold in the Gospel what he heard in the Prophets. But the mountains shall drop sweetness, and the hills shall be planted with vineyards: after the conversion of the Lord, they shall build cities which were desolate before, and shall dwell in them: and they shall plant vineyards, and shall drink the wine of them: they shall make gardens, and eat the fruits of them. And I will plant them upon their own land: and I will no more pluck them out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God. (Amos 9:14-15) And in the Psalms it is said: The impetus of the river gladdens the city of God (Ps. XLV, 4). They will also plant a vineyard of Noah (Gen. IX), and they will drink its wine, and they will become intoxicated, and they will hear from the Lord Savior: Drink, my friends, and become intoxicated (Cant. V, 1). But they will drink the wine, which he promised to drink anew with his apostles in the kingdom of the Father (Mark XIV). This is the vineyard of Sorec, whose wine we drink daily in the mysteries. Not content with the happiness of these things, they will make delightful gardens and water them, so that no kinds of virtues are lacking in them, and they will eat their fruits. For whoever plants and waters, he himself also will eat. And when all these things are done by mountains and hills, giving forth sweetness, and by building cities, and by dwelling in them, planting vineyards, and drinking their wine, making gardens, and eating their fruits, then the Lord will plant these planters upon his land, of which it is said: I believe that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Psalm 26:13). And in the Gospel: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Matt. 5:4). But after he has planted them and their roots have grown deep, they will no longer be uprooted from the earth he has given them. From this we understand that the Church, even though it is shaken by persecutions, can never be destroyed; it may be tested, but it will not be overcome. And this will happen because the Lord God Almighty, or the Lord God of the Church, has promised to make it so, and his promise is the law of nature.