cruelty

¹⁷A merciful man benefits his own soul. But whoever is cruel casts out even his close relatives.

¹³Whoever blocks his ears to the outcry of the poor shall also cry out himself, and he will not be heeded.

¹Where do wars and contentions among you come from? Is it not from this: from your own desires, which battle within your members? ²You desire, and you do not have. You envy and you kill, and you are unable to obtain. You argue and you fight, and you do not have, because you do not ask. ³You ask and you do not receive, because you ask badly, so that you may use it toward your own desires. ⁴You adulterers! Do you not know that the friendship of this world is hostile to God? Therefore, whoever has chosen to be a friend of this world has been made into an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you think that Scripture says in vain: “The spirit which lives within you desires unto envy?” ⁶But he gives a greater grace. Therefore he says: “God resists the arrogant, but he gives grace to the humble.”

²¹For from within, from the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, ²²thefts, avarice, wickedness, deceitfulness, homosexuality, an evil eye, blasphemy, self-exaltation, foolishness.

²⁹Whoever troubles his own house will possess the winds. And whoever is foolish will serve the wise.

¹⁸Instead, with their arrows, they will put the little children to death, and they will take no pity on breastfeeding women, and their eye will not spare their children.

¹⁰The just one knows the lives of his beasts. But the inner most parts of the impious are cruel.

⁴So I say to you, my friends: Do not be fearful of those who kill the body, and afterwards have no more that they can do.

²⁸And do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. But instead fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.

⁶The Lord questions the just and the impious. Yet he who loves iniquity, hates his own soul.

²⁴An enemy is known by his lips, though it is from his heart that he draws out deceit. ²⁵When he will have lowered his voice, do not believe him, for there are seven vices in his heart. ²⁶Whoever covers hatred with deceit, his malice shall be revealed in the assembly. ²⁷Whoever digs a pit will fall into it. And whoever rolls a stone, it will roll back to him. ²⁸A false tongue does not love truth. And a slippery mouth works ruin.

⁴²They will take up the bow and the shield. They are cruel and merciless. Their voice will sound out, like the sea, and they will ride upon horses, like a man prepared for battle against you, O daughter of Babylon.

¹⁹The illustrious of Israel have been killed upon your mountains. How could the valiant have fallen? ²⁰Do not choose to announce it in Gath, and do not announce it in the crossroads of Ashkelon. Otherwise, the daughters of the Philistines may rejoice; otherwise, the daughters of the uncircumcised may exult.

⁸Cease from wrath and leave behind rage. Do not choose to imitate the malicious.

¹And the fifth Angel sounded the trumpet. And I saw upon the earth, a star that had fallen from heaven, and the key to the well of the abyss was given to him. ²And he opened the well of the abyss. And the smoke of the well ascended, like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were obscured by the smoke of the well. ³And locusts went forth from the smoke of the well into the earth. And power was given to them, like the power that the scorpions of the earth have. ⁴And it was commanded of them that they must not harm the plants of the earth, nor anything green, nor any tree, but only those men who do not have the Seal of God upon their foreheads. ⁵And it was given to them that they would not kill them, but that they would torture them for five months. And their torture was like the torture of a scorpion, when he strikes a man. ⁶And in those days, men will seek death and they will not find it. And they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.

²O God, my God, look upon me. Why have you forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my offenses. ³My God, I will cry out by day, and you will not heed, and by night, and it will not be foolishness for me. ⁴But you dwell in holiness, O Praise of Israel. ⁵In you, our fathers have hoped. They hoped, and you freed them. ⁶They cried out to you, and they were saved. In you, they hoped and were not confounded. ⁷But I am a worm and not a man: a disgrace among men, and an outcast of the people.