Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Victory Hymn of God Most Good and Most Great, Conquering the Wicked from His Cherubic Chariot, and Triumphing Over Them, from the Oracles of Ezekiel
I. The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came from the North: and a great cloud, and fire enveloping it, and brightness round about it: and from the midst of it as it were the appearance of amber, that is, from the midst of the fire. And in the midst of it was the likeness of four living creatures: and this was their appearance — the likeness of a man was in them. Each had four faces, and each had four wings.
II. And I looked, and behold, a hand was sent to me, in which was a rolled-up book: and He spread it out before me, and it was written within and without: and there were written in it lamentations, and a song, and woe.
III. And I ate it: and it became in my mouth sweet as honey. Behold, I have made your face stronger than their faces, and your forehead harder than their foreheads. As an adamant and as flint have I made your face; do not fear them, nor be dismayed at their presence: for they are a rebellious house.
IV. Set an iron pan as an iron wall between you and the city. And you shall lie on your left side for three hundred and ninety days for the iniquities of the house of Israel. Then you shall lie on your right side for forty days for the iniquities of the house of Judah. And you shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin. You shall eat bread baked under ashes, and you shall cover it with human dung. And I said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, behold my soul has not been defiled; and I have not eaten anything that died of itself or was torn by beasts from my youth until now, and no unclean flesh has entered my mouth. And He said to me: Behold, I have given you cow's dung instead of human dung: and you shall make your bread with it.
V. You shall shave your head and your beard, and divide the hair: a third part you shall burn with fire, a third you shall cut with the sword, a third you shall scatter to the wind. As I live, says the Lord, because you have violated My sanctuary, a third part of you shall die by pestilence, a third shall fall by the sword, and a third I will scatter to every wind. And you shall be a reproach and a blasphemy, an example and an astonishment among the nations.
VI. Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord: Behold, I will bring the sword upon you; and I will destroy your high places. And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before the face of your idols: and I will scatter your bones around your altars. Thus says the Lord God: Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say: Alas, for all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel: for they shall fall by sword, famine, and pestilence.
VII. Thus says the Lord: The end has come, the end has come upon the four quarters of the earth. They made the ornament of their jewels into an object of pride, and fashioned images of their idols from it. Therefore I will give it into the hands of strangers to be plundered, and to the wicked of the earth as spoil, and they shall defile it.
VIII. A hand was put forth, and the spirit lifted me up between heaven and earth, and brought me to Jerusalem. And I saw at the north of the gate of the altar the idol of jealousy at the very entrance. And He said: You shall see yet greater abominations.
IX. The Lord said to the scribe clothed in linen: Pass through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark the letter thau upon the foreheads of the men who groan and grieve over all the abominations that are committed in the midst of it. Then He said to the six men, each of whom had a weapon of destruction in his hand: Pass through the city after him, and strike: let not your eye spare, nor have pity.
X. He saw the Cherubim, and above them the firmament, and a throne of sapphire. And the Cherub stretched out his hand from the midst of the Cherubim to the fire that was among the Cherubim: and he took it, and gave it into the hands of him who was clothed in linen: who, having received it, went forth.
XI. The children of Israel think, saying: Were not the houses built long ago? This is the cauldron, and we are the flesh. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Your slain, whom you have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this is the cauldron: and I will bring you forth from the midst of it.
XII. You therefore, son of man, prepare for yourself the baggage of exile, and go into exile by day before their eyes: you shall move from your place to another place in their sight, if perhaps they will look: for they are a rebellious house.
XIII. Thus says the Lord God: Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and see nothing! Like foxes in the deserts were your prophets, O Israel. You did not go up to face the enemy, nor did you set up a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in battle on the day of the Lord. Behold, I am against your pillows, with which you catch souls that fly: and I will tear them from your arms: and I will release the souls that you catch, the souls meant to fly free. And I will tear your coverings, and I will deliver My people from your hand, and they shall no longer be prey in your hands: and you shall know that I am the Lord.
XIV. If these three men were in the midst of it — Noah, Daniel, and Job — they by their own righteousness would deliver their own souls, but neither sons nor daughters would they deliver: they alone would be saved, while the land would be made desolate.
XV. Son of man, what shall be done with the wood of the vine, out of all the trees of the groves that are among the trees of the forests? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel: the fire has consumed both ends of it, and the middle of it is reduced to ashes: shall it be useful for any work?
XVI. You were cast upon the face of the earth in the abjection of your soul, on the day you were born. And I clothed you with embroidered garments, and shod you with violet, and girded you with fine linen, and covered you with delicate fabrics. And I adorned you with ornaments, and put bracelets on your hands, and a chain about your neck. Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. And I will judge you with the judgments of adulteresses and of those who shed blood: and I will make you a victim of the blood of fury and jealousy. And I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall destroy your brothel; and they shall demolish your place of shame: and they shall strip you of your garments, and take away the vessels of your beauty: and they shall leave you naked and full of disgrace. And they shall bring a multitude against you, and they shall stone you with stones, and slay you with their swords. And they shall burn your houses with fire.
XVII. Thus says the Lord God: A great eagle with great wings, long-limbed, full of feathers and variety, came to Lebanon, and took the marrow of the cedar. He plucked off the topmost of its young twigs: and carried it into the land of Canaan, and set it in a city of merchants.
XVIII. What is it that you turn this parable into a proverb in the land of Israel, saying: The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge? As I live, says the Lord God, this parable shall no longer be a proverb for you in Israel. The soul that sins, it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked man does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My precepts, and does judgment and justice: he shall surely live, and shall not die. I will not remember any of his iniquities which he has committed: in his justice which he has wrought, he shall live. But if the righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man is accustomed to work, shall he live? All his righteous deeds which he had done shall not be remembered: in the transgression by which he has transgressed, and in his sin which he has sinned, in them he shall die.
XIX. The lioness took one of her whelps and made him a lion: he learned to catch prey and to devour men. He learned to make widows: then the nations brought him into a cage, and led him in chains to the king of Babylon. And its strong rods became scepters of rulers. And it was plucked up in wrath, fire consumed its fruit: it became a lamentation, and shall remain a lamentation.
XX. As I live, says the Lord God, I will reign over you with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God: they say of me: Does this man not speak in parables?
XXI. And you shall say to the land of Israel: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, and I will draw My sword from its sheath, and I will slay in you the righteous and the wicked. It has been sharpened to slay victims: it has been polished to gleam: you who move the scepter of My son, you have cut down every tree. Sharpen yourself, go to the right or to the left, wherever your face is directed. For the king of Babylon stood at the crossroads, at the head of two roads, seeking divination, shaking arrows: he consulted the idols, he examined the entrails. The divination fell to his right hand, against Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth for slaughter, to lift up the voice in howling, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up a mound, to build fortifications.
Thus says the Lord God: Remove the miter, take off the crown: is this not she who raised the lowly and brought low the exalted? Iniquity, iniquity, iniquity will I make it: and this was not done until He came whose right it is to judge, and I delivered it to Him. And you, son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus says the Lord God to the sons of Ammon, and concerning their reproach, and you shall say: Sword, sword, unsheathe yourself to slay, polish yourself to kill, and to flash.
XXII. And you, son of man, will you not judge, will you not judge the city of blood? You have despised My sanctuaries, and polluted My sabbaths. And I sought among them for a man who would build a wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I might not destroy it: and I found none.
XXIII. Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother. And they committed fornication in Egypt, in their youth they committed fornication. Their names were Oolla the elder, and Ooliba her younger sister: their names were Samaria for Oolla, and Jerusalem for Ooliba. Oolla committed fornication, and was mad with lust for her lovers, the Assyrians who came near, clothed in violet, young men of desire, horsemen. Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the sons of Assur, upon whom she doted with passion. When her sister Ooliba saw this, she was even more mad with lust than her sister: and she shamelessly offered her fornication beyond her sister's fornication to the sons of the Assyrians — captains coming to her, clothed in rich apparel, horsemen riding horses, and young men all of outstanding beauty.
XXIV. Thus says the Lord God: Set the pot, and pour water into it. Gather its pieces into it, every good part, the thigh and the shoulder, choice pieces full of bones. Take the fattest of the flock, pile the bones also beneath it: the boiling has boiled over, and the bones in the midst of it are cooked through. Pile up the bones, which I will set on fire: the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole mixture shall be cooked, and the bones shall waste away. Son of man, behold I take from you the delight of your eyes with a stroke: and you shall not mourn, nor weep, nor shall your tears flow. Groan in silence, make no mourning for the dead: let your crown be bound upon you, and your sandals on your feet, do not cover your face with a veil, nor eat the bread of mourners. So I spoke to the people in the morning, and my wife died in the evening: and I did in the morning as He had commanded me. Ezekiel shall be a sign for you: according to all that I have done, so shall you do when this comes: and you shall know that I am the Lord God.
XXV. And you shall say to the sons of Ammon: Because you clapped your hands, and stamped your foot, and rejoiced with all your heart against the land of Israel: Therefore behold, I will stretch out My hand against you, and I will deliver you to be plundered by the nations, and I will slay you from among the peoples, and destroy you from the lands, and crush you: and you shall know that I am the Lord. Thus says the Lord God: Because Edom has taken vengeance to avenge itself against the children of Judah, and has sinned grievously and sought revenge against them: Therefore thus says the Lord God: I will stretch out My hand against Edom, and take away from it man and beast, and I will make it desolate from the south: and those who are in Dedan shall fall by the sword.
XXVI. Son of man, because Tyre has said of Jerusalem: Aha, the gates of the peoples are broken, she has turned to me: I shall be filled, now that she is laid waste. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and I will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to rise. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers: and I will scrape her dust from her, and make her a bare, shining rock. And all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones: and they shall put off their robes, and cast away their embroidered garments, and clothe themselves with astonishment: they shall sit upon the ground, and be amazed at your sudden fall, and wonder. And taking up a lamentation over you, they shall say to you: How have you perished, you who dwell in the sea, O renowned city, who were mighty in the sea, with your inhabitants whom all feared?
XXVII. O Tyre, you have said: I am of perfect beauty, and situated in the heart of the sea. All the ships of the sea, and their sailors, were among the people of your commerce. All these shall fall with you into the heart of the sea on the day of your ruin.
XXVIII. Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said: I am a god, and I sit in the seat of God in the heart of the sea, although you are a man and not God, and you have set your heart as if it were the heart of God. Behold, you are wiser than Daniel: no secret is hidden from you. You shall die the death of the uncircumcised at the hands of strangers: for I have spoken, says the Lord God. You were the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You were in the delights of the paradise of God: every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, the topaz, and the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl, the sapphire and the carbuncle, and the emerald: gold the work of your beauty: and your openings were prepared on the day you were created. You were a Cherub, outstretched and protecting, and I set you on the holy mountain of God, you walked in the midst of the stones of fire, perfect in your ways from the day of your creation, until iniquity was found in you.
And your heart was lifted up because of your beauty: you have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your beauty; I have cast you to the ground; I have set you before the face of kings that they might behold you.
XXIX. Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy concerning him and concerning all Egypt. Speak, and say: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, you great dragon who lies in the midst of your rivers, and says: The river is mine, and I made myself. And I will put a hook in your jaws: and I will cause the fish of your rivers to stick to your scales: and I will draw you out of the midst of your rivers, and all your fish shall stick to your scales. Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was stripped bare: and no wages were paid to him or to his army from Tyre for the service he rendered Me against it. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will give Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon the land of Egypt: and he shall take its multitude, and seize its spoils, and plunder its plunder: and it shall be the wages for his army.
XXX. Son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus says the Lord God: Howl, woe, woe to the day! For the day is near, and the day of the Lord approaches: a day of clouds, a time of the nations it shall be. And the sword shall come upon Egypt: and there shall be terror in Ethiopia, when the wounded shall fall in Egypt, and its multitude shall be carried away, and its foundations destroyed.
XXXI. Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his people: To whom are you likened in your greatness? Behold, the Assyrian was like a cedar in Lebanon, fair in branches and leafy in shade, lofty in height, and its top was raised among the thick boughs. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because he was exalted in height, and set his green and thick top on high, and his heart was lifted up in his loftiness: I delivered him into the hand of the mightiest of the nations, who shall surely deal with him: according to his wickedness I cast him out. And strangers shall cut him down, and the most cruel of nations. To whom are you likened, O illustrious and lofty one among the trees of delight? Behold, you are brought down with the trees of delight to the nethermost earth: in the midst of the uncircumcised you shall sleep, with those who were slain by the sword: this is Pharaoh, and all his multitude, says the Lord God.
XXXII. Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him: You were likened to a lion of the nations, and to a dragon that is in the sea: and you thrashed about with your horn in your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and trampled their streams. Therefore thus says the Lord God: I will spread My net over you with a multitude of many peoples, and I will draw you out in My dragnet. There is Assyria, and all its multitude: round about it are its graves: all slain, and fallen by the sword. You therefore shall be crushed in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shall sleep with those slain by the sword.
XXXIII. Say to them: As I live, says the Lord God; I do not desire the death of the wicked, but that the wicked man turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your most wicked ways; and why will you die, O house of Israel? And they come to you as if a people were entering, and My people sit before you: and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for they turn them into a song of their mouth, and their heart follows its own greed. And you are to them like a musical song, which is sung with a sweet and pleasant sound: and they hear your words, but they do not do them. And when what was foretold comes to pass (for behold, it is coming), then they shall know that there was a prophet among them.
XXXIV. Woe to the shepherds of Israel who fed themselves! Should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds? You ate the milk, and clothed yourselves with the wool, and killed what was fat: but you did not feed My flock. The weak you did not strengthen, and the sick you did not heal, the broken you did not bind up, and the outcast you did not bring back, and the lost you did not seek; but you ruled over them with harshness and with force. And My sheep were scattered because there was no shepherd: and they became food for all the beasts of the field, and were scattered. Therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I Myself am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease feeding the flock, and the shepherds shall no longer feed themselves: and I will deliver My flock from their mouth, and it shall no longer be food for them. I will feed My sheep, and I will cause them to lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek what was lost, and bring back what was driven away, and bind up what was broken, and strengthen what was weak, and guard what was fat and strong; and I will feed them with judgment. And I will raise up over them one shepherd who shall feed them, My servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God: and My servant David shall be prince in their midst: I the Lord have spoken.
XXXV. Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Mount Seir, and I will stretch out My hand against you, and I will make you desolate and waste. I will demolish your cities, and you shall be desolate: and you shall know that I am the Lord. Because you have been a perpetual enemy, and have shut up the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their affliction, in the time of their final iniquity.
XXXVI. Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and hills, to the ridges and valleys: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I have spoken in My zeal and in My fury, because you have borne the shame of the nations. Therefore thus says the Lord God: I have raised My hand in oath, that the nations round about you shall themselves bear their own shame. But you, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit for My people Israel: for it is near at hand. And I will fill you with men and cattle: and they shall be multiplied and shall increase; and I will cause you to be inhabited as in the beginning, and I will bestow upon you greater goods than you had from the start: and you shall know that I am the Lord. And I will pour clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your defilements, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh.
XXXVII. The hand of the Lord came upon me, and He brought me forth in the spirit of the Lord: and He set me down in the midst of a plain that was full of bones. And He said to me: Son of man, do you think these bones shall live? And I said: O Lord God, You know. And He said to me: Prophesy over these bones: and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. And the bones came together, each one to its joint. And I looked, and behold, sinews and flesh came upon them: and skin was stretched over them from above, but they had no spirit. And the spirit entered into them, and they lived: and they stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. And He said to me: Son of man, all these bones are the house of Israel: they themselves say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off. Therefore prophesy, and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves, and bring you forth from your sepulchers, O My people: and I will bring you into the land of Israel. And I will strike a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant it shall be: and I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in the midst of them forever.
XXXVIII. Son of man, set your face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal, and prophesy concerning him. And you shall say to him: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal. And I will turn you around, and put a hook in your jaws: and I will bring you forth, and all your army, horses and horsemen all clad in armor, a great multitude seizing spear and shield and sword. And I will call the sword against him on all My mountains, says the Lord God: and each one's sword shall be directed against his own brother. And I will judge him with pestilence and blood, and with violent rain and immense hailstones: I will rain fire and brimstone upon him, and upon his army, and upon the many peoples who are with him.
XXXIX. Upon the mountains of Israel you shall fall, you and all your troops, and your peoples who are with you: I have given you to the wild beasts, the birds, and every winged creature, and to the beasts of the earth, to be devoured. And I will send fire upon Magog, and upon those who dwell securely in the islands: and they shall know that I am the Lord. And they shall burn the weapons with fire for seven years; and they shall bury Gog there, and the valley shall be called the Valley of the Multitude of Gog. And the name of the city shall be Amona, and they shall cleanse the land.
XL. In visions of God He brought me to the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain: upon which there was as it were the frame of a city facing toward the south. And behold, a man whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze, and a linen cord was in his hand, and a measuring reed in his hand: and he stood in the gate, and he measured with the reed the gates, the vestibules, the windows, the chambers, the courts, and the treasuries of the temple.
XLIII. And I heard One speaking to me from the house, and the man who stood beside me said to me: Son of man, this is the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever: and the house of Israel shall no more defile My holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their fornications, and by the ruins of their kings, and in the high places. Now therefore let them put away their fornication, and the ruins of their kings far from Me: and I will dwell in the midst of them forever.
XLIV. And He turned me toward the way of the gate of the outer sanctuary, which looked toward the East: and it was shut.
XLV. And when you shall begin to divide the land by lot, separate the first-fruits for the Lord, a holy portion of the land, twenty-five thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth: it shall be holy in all its borders round about.
XLVI. Thus says the Lord God: If the prince gives a gift to any of his sons, the inheritance shall belong to his sons; they shall possess it by right of inheritance.
XLVII. And He brought me back to the gate of the house, and behold, waters issued from under the threshold of the house toward the East: for the face of the house looked toward the East: and the waters came down on the right side of the temple, to the south of the altar.
And He led me through the water up to the ankles. And again He measured a thousand, and led me through the water up to the knees. And He measured a thousand, and led me through the water up to the loins. And He measured a thousand — a torrent which I could not cross: for the waters had risen to the depth of a torrent that cannot be forded. And when I had turned back, behold, on the bank of the torrent were very many trees on both sides.
XLVIII. And these are the exits of the city: On the northern side you shall measure five hundred and four thousand. And the gates of the city shall bear the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates on the north — the gate of Reuben, one; the gate of Judah, one; the gate of Levi, one. Round about, eighteen thousand; and the name of the city from that day shall be: The Lord is there.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.