Sibylline Oracles

Book 1: Creation and the Flood

1 Beginning with the first generation of mortal men down to the very last
2 I’ll prophesy each thing: what once has been,
3 and what is now, and what will yet happen to
4 the world through the impiety of men.

The Creation

5 First now God urges me to tell truly how the world came into being.
6 And you, shrewd mortal, prudently make known,
7 so that you never neglect my commands, the most high King, who brought into existence
8 the whole world, saying, “Let there be,” and there was.
9 For he established the earth, placing it
10 around Tartarus, and he himself gave the sweet light; he raised the heaven on high,
11 spread out the gleaming sea, and crowned the sky
12 with an abundance of bright-shining stars,
13 and adorned the earth with plants, and mixed sea
14 with rivers, and mixed the air with breezes
15 and watery clouds; and then, another race appointing, he gave fishes to the seas
16 and birds to the winds, and to the woods
17 the shaggy-necked beasts, and snakes that crawl,
18 and all things which now appear on the earth.
19 He made these by his word, and everything
20 was done speedily and with precision; for he was self-caused and from heaven looked down
21 and the world was finished exceedingly well.
22 And then after that he fashioned again
23 a living product, copying a new man
24 from his own image, beautiful, divine,
25 and told him to live in a heavenly garden, so that beautiful labors might be his care.
26 But in that fertile field of Paradise
27 he longed for conversation, being alone, and prayed that he might see another form
28 like his own. And at once, from man’s side
29 taking a bone, God himself made beautiful Eve,⁠a
30 a wedded spouse, and in that Paradise gave her to live with him. And, when he gazed
31 upon her, all of a sudden filled with joy
32 great admiration held his soul, he saw
33 a pattern so exact; and with wise words
34 flowing spontaneously he answered in turn
35 for God cared for all things. For they did not darken their minds with passion, nor concealed
36 their nakedness, but with hearts far from evil
37 even like wild beasts they walked with limbs exposed.

The Fall of Humanity

38 And afterwards giving them commands
39 God showed them not to touch a certain tree;
40 but the terrible serpent drew them off by guile to go away to the fate of death
41 and to gain knowledge of both good and evil.
42 But the wife then first proved a traitor to God;
43 she gave, and urged the unknowing man to sin.
44 And he, persuaded by the woman’s words,
45 forgot the immortal Maker utterly, and treated plain commandments with neglect.
46 Therefore, instead of good, they received evil
47 according to their deed. And then the leaves of the sweet fig-tree they pierced and made into clothes
48 and put them on each other, and concealed
49 the sexual parts, because they were ashamed.
50 But on them the Immortal set his anger and cast them out of the immortal land.
51 For their living now in mortal land
52 was brought about, since they heard but did not keep
53 the word of the immortal mighty God.
54 And at once they, upon the fruitful soil
55 going out, were wet with their tears and groans; and to them then the immortal God himself
56 spoke a more excellent word: “Multiply,
57 increase, work constantly upon the earth, so that with the sweat of labor you may have
58 enough food.” So he spoke; and he made
59 the author of deceit to press the ground
60 on belly and on side, a crawling snake, driving him out severely; and he sent
61 bitter enmity between them and the one
62 is on the lookout to preserve his head,
63 but man his heel; for death is a near neighbor
64 of evil-plotting vipers and of men.
65 And then indeed the race was multiplied
66 as the Almighty himself commanded,
67 and there grew up one people on another
68 countless. And they adorned houses
69 of all kinds and made cities and their walls
70 well and expertly; and they were given a day of long time for a life much-loved;
71 for they did not, worn out with troubles, die,
72 but as subdued by sleep; most happy men of great heart, whom the immortal Savior loved,
73 the King, God. But they also transgressed,
74 struck with folly. For with impudence
75 they mocked their fathers and scorned their mothers; they did not know relatives, and they plotted
76 against their brothers. And they were impure,
77 having defiled themselves with human gore,
78 and they made wars. And then there came upon them
79 the last calamity sent from heaven,
80 which snatched the dreadful men away from life; and Hades then received them; it was called
81 Hades since Adam, having tasted death,
82 went first and earth surrounded him.
83 And therefore all men born upon the earth
84 are called to go to the homes of Hades.
85 But even in Hades all these when they came
86 had honor, since they were the earliest race.
87 But when Hades received these, secondly
88 of the surviving and most righteous men
89 God formed another very clever race
90 that cared for lovely works, and noble toils, distinguished reverence and solid wisdom;
91 and they were trained in arts of every kind,
92 finding inventions by their lack of means.
93 And one devised to till the land with plows,
94 another worked in wood, another cared
95 for sailing, and another watched the stars and practiced augury with winged birds;
96 and use of drugs had interest for one, while for another magic had a charm;
97 and others were in every other art
98 which men care for instructed, wide awake, industrious, worthy of that eponym
99 because they had a sleepless mind within
100 and a huge body; they were stout with mighty form but nevertheless they went down
101 into the terrible Tartarean chamber,
102 kept in firm chains to pay full penalty
103 in Gehenna of strong, furious, unquenchable fire.
104 And after these a third strong-minded race
105 appeared, a race of overbearing men and terrible, who worked among themselves
106 many evils. And fights, homicides,
107 and battles continually destroyed
108 those men of arrogant heart,
109 and from these afterward another race
110 proceeded, late-completed, youngest born,
111 blood-stained, perverse in counsel; these men
112 were in the fourth race; they spilled much blood,
113 nor did they fear God or have regard for men,
114 for maddening anger and grievous impiety
115 were sent upon them. And wars, homicides, and battles sent some into Erebus,
116 since they were arrogant, impious men.
117 But the heavenly God himself in anger afterwards removed the rest from his world,
118 casting them into mighty Tartarus
119 down under the foundation of the earth.
120 And later yet another race much worse
121 of men he made, to whom no good afterward
122 the Immortal formed, since they did many evils.
123 For they were much more violent than those,
124 perverse giants, foul language pouring out.

Noah and the Warning of the Flood

125 The most faithful Noah, alone among all men, was most just and true, full of care⁠b
126 for the noblest works. And to him God himself
127 spoke from heaven: “Noah, take heart
128 in yourself and preach to all the people
129 repentance, so that they may all be saved.
130 But if, with shameless soul, they do not heed me I will utterly destroy the whole race
131 with mighty floods of waters. Quickly now
132 I command you to build an undecaying house
133 of strong planks, impervious to the wet.
134 I will put understanding in your heart,
135 and subtle skill, and rule of measurement and order; and I will take care of everything
136 so that you are saved, and all who live with you.
137 And I am He who is, and in your heart
138 discern it. I clothe myself with the heaven,
139 and cast the sea around me, and for me
140 earth is a footstool, and the air is poured around my body; and on every side
141 around me runs the chorus of the stars.
142 I have nine letters; I am of four syllables discern me. The first three have each
143 two letters, the remaining one the rest,
144 and five are mutes; and of the entire sum
145 the hundreds are twice eight and three times three tens along with seven. Now, knowing who I am,
146 do not be uninitiated in my lore.”
147 So he spoke; and great trembling seized him at what he heard. And then, within his mind
148 having contrived each matter, he begged
149 the people and began with words like these:
150 “Insatiable men, struck with great madness, whatever things you practiced they will not
151 escape God’s notice; for he knows all things,
152 immortal Savior overseeing all,
153 who told me to warn you, so that you do not perish.
154 Be sober, cut off evil, do not fight
155 each other by force with blood-guilty hearts, nor irrigate much land with human gore.
156 Revere, mortals, the supremely great
157 and fearless heavenly Creator, God
158 imperishable, whose dwelling is the sky;
159 and all of you, plead with him—he is kind—
160 for life of cities and of all the world, and of four-footed beasts and flying birds;
161 beg him to be gracious to all.
162 For when the whole unbounded world of men
163 is destroyed by loud waters you’ll raise
164 a fearful cry. And suddenly for you
165 the air will be disordered, and from heaven the fury of the mighty God will come
166 upon you. And it certainly will be
167 that the immortal Savior against men will send anger if you do not placate God
168 and from this time repent; and nothing more
169 fretful and evil lawlessly shall you
170 one to another do, but let there be a guarding of oneself by holy life.”
171 But when they heard him each turned up his nose,
172 calling him mad, a frenzy-stricken man.
173 And then again Noah raised this cry:
174 “Exceedingly wretched men, vile in heart,
175 unstable, leaving modesty behind and loving shamelessness, rapacious lords,
176 fierce sinners, false, insatiable, mischievous,
177 in nothing true, stealthy adulterers,
178 flippant in language, pouring out foul words,
179 not fearing the anger of God most high, kept
180 to the fifth generation to atone!
181 You do not wail at all, harsh men, but laugh;
182 you will laugh a sardonic smile, when there comes
183 that which I speak—God’s terrible coming flood,
184 when Eve’s polluted race, in the great earth
185 blooming perennial in impervious stem,
186 will, root and branch, disappear in one night,
187 and cities, men and all, the Earth-shaker will
188 from the depths scatter and destroy their walls.
189 And then the whole world of unnumbered men
190 will die. But how will I weep, how lament
191 in wooden house, how mix tears with waves?
192 For, if this water commanded by God comes,
193 earth will float, hills float, and even sky will float;
194 everything will be water, and all things
195 will be destroyed by waters. And the winds will stand still, and a second age will come.
196 Phrygia, you will, from the water’s crest,
197 first rise up, and you will first nourish another race of men, once again anew
198 beginning; and you will be nurse to all.”

Noah Enters the Ark

199 But when now to the lawless generation
200 he had thus vainly spoken, the Most High appeared, and once more cried aloud and said:
201 “The time has now come, Noah, to proclaim each thing, even all that I that day to you
202 promised and confirmed, and to complete, because of a people disobedient,
203 throughout the boundless world even all the things which generations of a former time
204 practiced, evil things innumerable.
205 But quickly enter with your sons
206 and their wives. Call as many as I command,
207 of tribes of beasts and creeping things and birds,
208 and in as many as I ordain for life
209 I will then put a willingness to go.”
210 So he spoke; Noah went out and aloud cried out and called. And then wife, sons and brides,
211 entered the house of wood; then also went
212 the other things, as many as God willed
213 to shut in. But when the fitting bolt was put
214 about the lid, and in its polished place
215 was fitted sideways, then there was carried out
216 at once the purpose of the God of heaven.
217 And he massed clouds, and hid the sun’s bright disk,
218 and moon, and stars, and circle of the heaven,
219 obscuring all things around; he thundered loud,
220 terror of mortals, sending out lightning; and all the winds together were aroused,
221 and all the veins of water were loosed
222 by the opening of great floodgates from heaven,
223 and from earth’s caverns and the tireless deep
224 appeared the myriad waters, and the whole
225 boundless earth was covered over. But that wondrous house swam on the water;
226 and torn by many furious waves, and struck
227 by force of winds, it rushed on fearfully;
228 but with its keel it cut the mass of foam
229 while the loud-babbling waters dashed around.
230 But when God deluged all the world with rains then also Noah took thought to observe
231 by counsels of the Immortal; for he now
232 had had enough of Nereus. And at once
233 he opened the house from the polished wall,
234 that was bound fast crosswise with skillful stays.
235 And looking out upon the mighty mass of boundless waters Noah on all sides—
236 and it was his lot to see it with his eyes!—
237 fear possessed and shook his heart mightily. And then the air became a little calm,
238 since it was weary of wetting all the world
239 many days; parting, then, it brought to light
240 how pale and blood-red was the mighty sky
241 and sun’s bright disk wearied; scarcely held
242 Noah his courage. And then far out
243 he sent a dove alone, that he might learn
244 if yet firm land appeared. But with tired wing,
245 flying round all things, she again returned; for the water had not yet ebbed away;
246 for it was deeply filling every place.
247 But after resting quietly for days
248 he sent the dove once more, to learn if yet
249 the many waters had ceased. And she flew
250 and flew on, and went over the earth and, resting her body lightly on the humid ground,
251 she came back again to Noah and bore
252 an olive branch—a great sign of news. Courage now filled them all, and great delight,
253 because they hoped to look upon the land.
254 But then after that yet another bird,
255 with black wings, he sent out as hastily; which, trusting to its wings, flew willingly,
256 and coming to the land stayed there.
257 And Noah knew the land was nearer now.
258 But when on dashing waves the divine craft
259 had here and there swum over ocean’s waves,
260 it was made fast upon the narrow shore.

The Ark Reaches Phrygia

261 There is in Phrygia on the dark mainland
262 a steep, tall mountain; its name is Ararat,
263 because upon it all were to be saved
264 from death, and there was great desire of heart;
265 from there streams of the great river Marsyas spring.
266 There on a lofty peak the ark stayed
267 when the waters ceased, and then again from heaven
268 the divine voice of the great God this word
269 proclaimed: “Noah, guarded, faithful, just,
270 come boldly out, with your sons and your wife and the three brides, and fill all the earth,
271 increasing, multiplying, doing justice
272 to one another through all generations,
273 until to judgment every race of men
274 will come; for judgment will come to all.”
275 So spoke the divine voice. Then from his couch
276 Noah, encouraged, hastened on the land,
277 and with him went his sons and wife and brides,
278 and creeping things, and birds and quadrupeds,
279 and everything else went from the wooden house
280 into one place. And then Noah went out as eighth, most just of men, when on the waters
281 he had made full twice twenty days and one
282 because of the counsels of the mighty God.

The Generations after the Flood

283 Then a new stock of life again arose,
284 golden first, which indeed was sixth, and best,
285 from the time when the first-formed man appeared; its name is Heavenly, because all things to God
286 will be a care. First race of sixth age!
287 Mighty joy which I afterward shared,
288 when I escaped sheer ruin, by the waves
289 much tossed, with husband and with brothers-in-law,
290 stepfather and stepmother, and with wives of husband’s brothers suffering terribly.
291 Now I will sing fitting things: There will be
292 on the fig-tree a many-colored flower, and afterward the royal power and rule
293 Cronos will have. For three great-souled kings,
294 men most just, will distribute portions then,
295 and rule for many years, doing what is just
296 to men who care for toil and deeds of love.
297 And earth will glory in her many fruits
298 self-growing, yielding much grain for the race.
299 And the foster-fathers, ageless all their days,
300 will be far from chill and dreadful diseases they will die as if fallen asleep,
301 and into Acheron in the homes
302 of Hades they will go away, and there they will have honor, since they were a race
303 of blessed ones, fortunate heroes, whom
304 the Lord of Sabaoth gave a noble mind,
305 and with whom always he shared his counsels.
306 But they will be blessed even when they go
307 in Hades. And then afterward again
308 oppressive, strong, another second race
309 of earth-born men, the Titans. All excel
310 in figure, stature, growth; and there will be
311 one language, as of old from the first race
312 God implanted in their breasts. But even these,
313 having a haughty heart and rushing on
314 to ruin, will at last resolve to fight
315 against the starry heaven. And then the stream of the great ocean will pour upon them
316 its raging waters. But the mighty Lord of Sabaoth though enraged will check his anger,
317 because he promised that again no flood
318 should be brought upon men of evil soul. But when the great high-thundering God will cause
319 the boundless swelling of the many waters—
320 with their waves here and there rising high—
321 to cease from anger, and into other depths
322 of sea lessen their measure, setting bounds
323 by harbors and rough headlands around the land;

The Coming and Life of Jesus

324 then also a child of the great God will
325 come, clothed in flesh, to men, and fashioned like
326 mortals in the earth; and he hears
327 four vowels, and two consonants in him
328 are twice announced; I will name the whole sum:
329 for eight ones, and as many tens on these,
330 and yet eight hundred will reveal the name to men insatiable; and discern
331 in your own understanding that the Christ
332 is the child of the immortal God most high. And he will fulfill God’s law, not destroy,
333 bearing his very image, and all things
334 he will teach. Priests will bring to him
335 and offer gold, and myrrh, and frankincense; for all these things he’ll also bring about.
336 But when a voice through the desert land
337 comes bearing news to men, and to all
338 calls to make straight paths, and from the heart
339 cast wickedness out and illuminate
340 with water all the bodies of mankind, that being born again they may no more
341 go astray at all from what is righteous—
342 and one of barbarous mind, by dances bound, cutting that voice off will give a reward—
343 then suddenly there will be a sign
344 to mortals, when, watched over, there will come
345 out of the land of Egypt a fair stone;
346 and on it the Hebrew people will stumble;
347 but by his guiding nations will be brought
348 together; for the God who rules on high
349 they also will know through him, and the way
350 in common light. For to chosen men he will show life eternal, but the fire
351 he will bring for ages on the lawless.
352 And then he will heal the sickly, and all who are blameworthy who will trust in him.
353 And then the blind will see, the lame will walk,
354 the deaf will listen, and the mute will speak.
355 He will drive out demons, and of the dead there will be an uprising; on the waves
356 he will walk; also in a desert place
357 he will satisfy five thousand with food from five loaves and a fish out of the sea,
358 and with the remnants of them, for the hope
359 of peoples, he will fill twelve baskets full.
360 And then Israel, drunken, will not discern,
361 nor will they hear, oppressed with feeble ears.
362 But when the maddening anger of the Most High
363 will come upon the Hebrews, and take faith
364 away from them, because they killed the Son
365 of the heavenly God; then also with foul lips
366 Israel will give him blows and poisoned spittle.
367 And gall for food and unmixed vinegar
368 for drink they will, with evil madness stricken
369 in spirit and in heart, give impiously,
370 not seeing with their eyes, more blind than moles,
371 more terrible than crawling poisonous beasts,
372 fast bound by heavy sleep. But when his hands
373 he will spread out and measure out all things,
374 and bear the crown of thorns, and they will pierce
375 his side with reeds, for which dark monstrous night will be for three hours in the midst of day,
376 then also the temple of Solomon will
377 bring to an end a mighty sign for men, when he goes to the house of Hades
378 proclaiming resurrection to the dead.
379 But when in three days he comes again
380 into the light, and show his form to men and teach all things, ascending in the clouds
381 into the house of heaven he will go
382 leaving the world a Gospel covenant.
383 And in his name a new shoot will blossom
384 from nations that are guided by the law
385 of the Mighty One. But also after this there will be wise guides, and then afterward
386 there will be a cessation of the prophets.
387 After that, when the Hebrew people reap their evil harvest, a Roman king will
388 utterly destroy much gold and silver.
389 And afterward other royal powers will
390 continuously arise as kingdoms perish,
391 and they will oppress mortals. But a great fall
392 will be for those men, when they begin
393 unrighteous arrogance. But when the temple
394 of Solomon in the holy land will fall,
395 cast down by barbarous men in bronze armor, and from the land the Hebrews will be driven
396 wandering and wasted, and among the wheat
397 they will mingle many weeds, there will be
398 evil contention among all mankind;
399 and the cities suffering outrage will lament
400 each other, in their breasts receiving anger of the great God, since they did evil work.

Book 2: The End and the Judgment

1 Now while I begged hard, God held back
2 my wise song, also in my breast again
3 he put the charming voice of divine words.
4 In my whole body terror-stricken these
5 I follow; for I do not know what I say, but God impels me to proclaim each thing.

Disasters in the Last Generation

6 But when shocks come on earth, fierce thunderbolts,
7 thunders and lightnings, storms, and evil blight,
8 and rage of jackals and of wolves, manslaughter,
9 destruction of men and of lowing cattle,
10 four-footed cattle and hard-working mules,
11 and goats and sheep, then the ample field will
12 be barren from neglect, and fruits will fail,
13 and there will be a selling of their freedom
14 among most men, and robbery of temples.
15 And then, after these, will appear of men
16 the tenth race, when the earth-shaking Lightener
17 will break the zeal for idols and will shake
18 the people of seven-hilled Rome, and great riches
19 will perish, burned by Vulcan’s fiery flame.
20 And then bloody signs will descend from heaven—
21 but yet the whole world of countless men
22 enraged will kill each other, and in tumult
23 God will send famines, plagues, and thunderbolts
24 on men who, without justice, judge cases.
25 And there will be a lack of men in all the world, so that if anyone saw a trace
26 of man on earth, he would be amazed.
27 And then the great God who lives in heaven will
28 prove Savior of pious men in all things.
29 And then there will be peace and deep wisdom,
30 and the fruit-bearing land will yield again abundant fruits, not divided in parts
31 nor enslaved. And every harbor then,
32 and every haven, will be free to men
33 as before, and shamelessness will perish.
34 And then God will show mortals a great sign:
35 for like a lustrous crown a star will shine, bright, dazzling, from the radiant heaven
36 for many days; and then he will display
37 from heaven a crown for contest to men
38 who wrestle. And then there will be again

The Contest for Heavenly Life

39 a mighty contest of triumphal march
40 into the heavenly sky, and it will be for all men in the world, and have the fame
41 of immortality. And every people
42 will then strive in the immortal contests
43 for splendid victory. For no one there
44 can shamelessly buy a crown with silver.
45 For to them the pure Christ will award what is due, and crown the ones approved,
46 and give his martyrs an immortal prize
47 who carry on the contest to death.
48 And to chaste men who run their race well
49 will he the incorruptible reward
50 of the prize give, and to all men allot what is due, and also to foreign nations
51 that live a holy life and know one God.
52 And those who respect marriage and keep themselves far from adulteries,
53 he’ll give them rich gifts, eternal hope.
54 For every human soul is God’s free gift,

Instructions for an Honest Life

55 and it is not right for men to stain it with vile deeds. Do not be rich dishonestly, but lead
56 an honest life. Be satisfied
57 with what you have and keep yourself from what belongs to another. Do not speak what is false,
58 but care for all things that are true.
59 Do not revere idols vainly; but the God
60 imperishable honor always first, and next your parents. Give everything its due,
61 and do not come into unjust judgment.
62 Do not cast out the poor unjustly, nor judge by appearances; if wickedly
63 you judge, God will judge you later.
64 Avoid false testimony; tell the truth.
65 Maintain your virgin purity, and guard love among all. Use just measures;
66 for full measure is beautiful to all.
67 Do not tip the scales to one side, but draw them equal.
68 Do not swear falsely, ignorantly or willingly;
69 God hates the perjured man because he swore.
70 Never accept a gift that comes from unjust deeds do not steal seed;
71 accursed through many generations is he
72 who took it to scattering of life. Do not indulge vile lusts, do not slander, nor kill.
73 Give worn-out workers their wages; do not oppress
74 the poor man. Give help to orphans
75 and to widows and the needy. Talk with sense; keep a secret in your heart. Be unwilling
76 to act unjustly or to tolerate
77 unrighteous men. Give to the poor at once
78 and do not say, “Come tomorrow.” Of your grain
79 give to the needy with sweating hand.
80 He who gives alms knows how to lend to God. Mercy redeems from death when judgment comes.
81 Not sacrifice, but God desires mercy
82 rather than sacrifice. Clothe the naked,
83 share your bread with the hungry, in your house
84 take in the homeless and lead the blind.
85 Pity the shipwrecked; for the voyage is uncertain. To the fallen give a hand;
86 and save the one who stands without defense.
87 Suffering is common to all, life’s a wheel, riches unstable. Having wealth, reach out
88 your hand to the poor. Of what God gave to you
89 give some also to the needy.
90 The whole life of mortal men is common; but it comes out unequal. When you see
91 never mock a poor man with words,
92 nor harshly accost a man who may be blamed.
93 One’s life in death is proven; if one did
94 the unlawful or just, it will be decided
95 when he comes to judgment. Do not disable your mind with wine nor drink excessively.
96 Do not eat blood, and abstain from things
97 offered to idols. Do not put on the sword for slaughter, but defense; and I wish you might
98 use it neither lawlessly nor justly:
99 for if you kill an enemy your hand
100 you defile. Keep from your neighbor’s field, nor trespass on it; every landmark is just,
101 and trespass painful. Useful is possession
102 of lawful wealth, but of unrighteous gains it’s worthless. Do not harm any growing fruit
103 of the field. And let strangers be esteemed
104 in equal honor with the citizens;
105 for all will experience long-suffering hospitality as each other’s guests;
106 but let no one be a stranger
107 among you, since, you mortals, all of you
108 are of one blood, and no land has for men
109 any sure place. Do not wish or pray for wealth;
110 but pray to live on few things and possess nothing at all unjust. The love of gain
111 is mother of all evil. Do not long
112 for gold or silver; in them there will be
113 a double-edged and soul-destroying iron.
114 A snare to men continually are gold
115 and silver. Gold, source of evils, destructive of life, troubling all things, if only you
116 were not to mortals such a longed-for curse!
117 For wars, because of you, and pillaging and murders come, and children hate their fathers,
118 and brothers and sisters those of their own blood.
119 Plot no deceit, and do not arm your heart
120 against a friend. Do not keep concealed within a different thought from what you say;
121 nor, like a rock-clinging octopus, change with place. But be frank with all, and things from the soul
122 speak out. Whoever willfully
123 commits a wrong, he is an evil person; but one who does it under force, the end
124 I do not tell; but let each one’s will be right.
125 Do not pride yourself in wisdom, power, or wealth; God alone is the wise and mighty one
126 and full of riches. Do not trouble your heart
127 with evils that are past; for what is done
128 can never be undone. Do not let your hand
129 be hasty, but curb ferocious passion;
130 for many times one has, by striking, done murder without intent. Let suffering
131 be common, neither great nor too much.
132 Excessive good has not brought to men what is helpful. And much luxury
133 leads to immoderate lusts. Much wealth is prowl,
134 and makes one grow to wanton violence.
135 Passionate feeling, creeping in, causes destructive madness. Anger is a lust,
136 and when it is excessive it is rage. The zeal of good men is a noble thing,
137 but that of the base is base. Of wicked men
138 the boldness is destructive, but renown follows that of the good. To be revered
139 is virtuous love, but that of Cypris brings
140 an increase of shame. A foolish man is called very agreeable among his fellows.
141 Eat, drink, and talk with moderation;
142 of all things moderation is the best; but going past its limit brings grief.
143 Do not be envious, faithless, or abusive,
144 or evil-minded, or a false deceiver.
145 Be prudent and abstain from shameless deeds. Do not imitate what’s evil, but leave
146 vengeance to justice; for persuasion is
147 a useful thing, but strife breeds strife.
148 Do not trust too quickly before you see the end.
149 This is the contest, these are the rewards;
150 these are the prizes; this the gate of life and entrance into immortality,
151 which God in heaven to most righteous men
152 appointed a reward for victory; and through this gate will gloriously pass
153 those who will then receive the victor’s crown.

Signs of the End

154 But when this sign will appear everywhere—
155 children born with gray hair on their temples—
156 and human sufferings, famines, plagues, and wars,
157 and change of times, and many tearful wails,
158 ah! of how many parents in the lands
159 will children mourn and weep pitifully,
160 and with shrouds bury flesh and limbs in earth, mother of peoples, with the blood and dust
161 defiling themselves. Oh you wretched men
162 of the last generation, evildoers, terrible, childish, not seeing this,
163 that when the tribes of women do not bear
164 the harvest time of mortal men has come.
165 The ruin is near when impostors come
166 instead of prophets speaking on the earth.
167 And Beliar will come and many signs
168 perform for men. And then of holy men,
169 elect and faithful, there will be confusion,
170 and pillaging of them and of the Hebrews. And there will be upon them fearful anger
171 when from the east a people of twelve tribes
172 will come in search of fellow Hebrew people whom Assyrian shoot destroyed; and over these
173 nations will perish. But they afterward
174 will rule over men very mighty,
175 elect and faithful Hebrews, and enslave
176 them as before, since their power will never fail.
177 He who is highest of all, the all-seeing,
178 living in heaven, will scatter sleep on men,
179 covering the eyelids over. Blessed servants
180 whom the Master finds awake when he comes! And they all watch at all times and wait
181 with sleepless eyes. For it will be at dawn
182 or evening or midday; but he will surely come,
183 and it will be as I say, it will be,
184 to those who sleep, that from the starry heaven
185 the stars at midday will appear to all with the two lights as the time hurries on.

Elijah and the Last Signs

186 And then the Tishbite, driving from heaven
187 his heavenly chariot, and on earth
188 arriving, will display to all the world
189 three evil signs of life to be destroyed.
190 Alas for all the women in that day who will be found with burden in the womb!
191 Alas for all who nurse tender babies!
192 Alas for all who will live on the waves!
193 Alas for women who will see that day!
194 For a dark mist will hide the boundless world,
195 East, west, and south, and north. And then will flow

The Final Fire

196 a mighty stream of burning fire from heaven
197 and consume every place, earth, vast ocean,
198 and gleaming sea, and lakes and rivers, springs,
199 and cruel Hades and the heavenly sky.
200 And heavenly lights will break up into one
201 and into outward form all-desolate.
202 For stars from heaven will fall into all seas.
203 And all the souls of men will gnash their teeth
204 burned both by sulfur stream and force of fire
205 in ravenous soil, and ashes hide all things. And then of the world all the elements
206 will be lost, air, earth, sea, light, sky, days,
207 nights; and no longer in the air will fly
208 birds without number, nor will living things
209 that swim the sea swim any more at all,
210 nor loaded ship pass over the waves,
211 nor cattle plow straight furrows in the field, nor sound
212 of furious winds; but he will fuse all things
213 together, and will pick out what is pure.

Resurrection and Judgment

214 But when the immortal God’s eternal angels
215 arakiel, Ramiel, Uriel, Samiel, and Azael, who know how many evils
216 anyone did before, will from dark gloom
217 then lead to judgment all the souls of men
218 before the judgment-seat of the great God
219 immortal; for imperishable is
220 one only, himself the almighty, One, who will be judge of mortals; and to them
221 that live beneath the heavenly One will then
222 give souls and spirit and voice, and also bones fitted with joints to all kinds of flesh,
223 and both the flesh and sinews, veins and skin
224 around the body, and hair as before;
225 divinely fashioned and moved by breath
226 the bodies of those on earth will one day be raised.
227 And then Uriel, mighty angel, will break
228 the bolts of stern and lasting adamant
229 which, monstrous, hold the bronze gates of Hades,
230 at once cast them down, and to judgment lead
231 all forms that have endured much suffering,
232 especially the shapes of Titans born long ago,
233 and giants, and all whom the flood overwhelmed,
234 and all who perished in the billowy seas,
235 and all who provided a feast for the beasts⁠a and creeping things and birds, these in a mass
236 he will (Uriel) summon to the judgment-seat; and also those whom flesh-devouring fire
237 destroyed in flame, even these he will collect
238 and place before the judgment-seat of God. And when the Lord of Sabaoth who thunders on high
239 will end fate and raise the dead,
240 sit on his heavenly throne, and firmly fix the mighty pillar, then amid the clouds
241 Christ, who himself is incorruptible,
242 will come to the Incorruptible in glory with pure angels, and will sit
243 at the right hand on the great judgment-seat
244 to judge the life of pious and the way
245 of impious men. And Moses, the great friend of the Most High, will come clothed in flesh
246 also great Abraham himself will come,
247 isaac and Jacob, Joshua, Daniel,
248 elijah, Habakkuk and Jonah, and
249 those whom the Hebrews killed. But he will destroy
250 the Hebrews after Jeremiah, all who are to be judged at the judgment-seat,
251 so that they may receive what they deserve
252 and pay for all each did in mortal life. And then all will pass through the burning stream
253 of flame unquenchable; but all the just
254 will be saved; and the godless furthermore

The Judgment of Human Deeds

255 will to all ages perish, all who did evils before, and committed murders,
256 and all who are accomplices in them,
257 liars and thieves, and home-wreckers, crafty and terrible, and parasites,
258 and marriage-breakers pouring out vile words,
259 terrible, reckless, lawless, and idolaters;
260 and all who left the great immortal God, became blasphemers, did the pious harm,
261 destroying faith and killing righteous men
262 and all who with deceitful shamelessness
263 and double-faced rush in as presbyters
264 and reverend ministers, who knowingly
265 give unjust judgments, yielding to false words
266 more hurtful than the leopards and the wolves
267 and more vile; and all who are grossly proud
268 and usurers, who amass gain on gains⁠b
270 and damage orphans and widows in every way;
271 and all who give to widows and to orphans
272 the fruit of unjust deeds, and all who cast
273 reproach in giving from their own hard toils;
274 and all who left their parents in old age,
275 not paying them at all, nor offering to parents filial duty, and all who
276 were disobedient and against their fathers
277 spoke a harsh word; and all who took pledges and then denied them; and all the servants
278 who were against their masters, and again
279 those who licentiously defiled the flesh;
280 and all who untied a young woman’s belt for secret intercourse, and all who caused
281 abortions, and all who cast their offspring⁠c
282 unlawfully away; and sorcerers
283 and sorceresses with them, and these anger
284 of the heavenly and immortal God will drive
285 against a pillar where will all around
286 in a circle flow a restless stream of fire;
287 and deathless angels of the immortal God,
288 who lives forever, will bind with lasting bonds
289 in chains of flaming fire and from above
290 punish them all with the whip most terribly; and in Gehenna, in the gloom of night,
291 they will be cast beneath many horrid beasts
292 of Tartarus, where darkness is immense.
293 But when there will be many punishments
294 enforced on all who had an evil heart,
295 yet afterward a fiery wheel will
296 from a great river circle them around,
297 because they cared about wicked deeds.
298 And then one here, another there, will fathers,
299 young children, mothers, nursing babies, in tears
300 wail their most pitiful fate. They will never have their fill of tears, nor will a pitiful voice be heard
301 of those who moan, one here, another there,
302 but long worn under dark, dank Tartarus
303 they will cry aloud; and they will repay
304 in cursed places three times as much as all
305 the evil work they did, burned with much fire; and all of them, consumed by raging thirst
306 and hunger, will in anguish gnash their teeth
307 and call death beautiful, and death will flee away from them. For neither death nor night
308 will ever give them rest. And many things in vain
309 they will ask of the God who rules on high,
310 and then he will turn his face openly away from them. For he to erring men
311 gave, in seven ages for repentance, signs
312 by the hands of a virgin undefiled.

The Reward of the Righteous

313 But the others, all to whom right and fair works
314 and piety and thoughts most just were dear,
315 angels will, carrying them through the burning stream,⁠d
316 lead into light and life free from care,
317 where the immortal way of the great God comes
318 and three fountains—of honey, wine, and milk.
319 And equal land for all, not divided
320 by walls or fences, more abundant fruits
321 spontaneous will then bear, and the course
322 of life will be common and wealth undivided. For there will no longer be poor or rich,
323 tyrant nor slave, nor any great nor small,
324 nor kings nor leaders; all alike in common.
325 No more at all will one say, “night has come,” nor “tomorrow comes,” nor “yesterday has been”;
326 nor will there be many days of anxious care,
327 nor spring, nor winter, nor the summer-heat, nor autumn be, nor marriage, nor death,
328 nor sales, nor purchases, nor setting of the sun
329 nor rising; for God will make a long day.
330 And the almighty, imperishable God will grant the pious another thing,
331 when they will ask the imperishable God:⁠e
332 that he will allow men from raging fire
333 and endless gnawing anguish to be saved;
334 and he will do this. For after this he
335 will pluck them from the restless flame, elsewhere remove them, and for his own people’s sake send them to other and eternal life
336 with the immortals, in Elysian field, clearly false; for the penal fire will never cease from those who are condemned.
337 For I too might pray to have it so, branded with greatest scars of trespasses, which need more kindness. But let Origen
338 be ashamed of his presumptuous babble, saying there will be an end to punishments. Where move far-stretching waves of the lake
339 of deep, ever-flowing Acheron. Ah, miserable woman that I am!
340 What will I be in that day? for I sinned— being busy foolishly about all things,
341 caring for neither marriage-bond nor reason;
342 but even in my wealthy husband’s house I shut the needy out; and in the past
343 I knowingly performed unlawful things.
344 But, Savior, though I performed shameless things,
345 rescue me from my tormentors, a shameless woman. And I beg you now
346 let me rest a little from my song,
347 holy Giver of manna, King of the great realm.

Book 3: Oracles against the Nations

1 You high-thundering blessed heavenly One, who have set in their place the cherubim,
2 I, who have uttered what is all too true,
3 beg you, let me have a little rest; for my heart has grown weary from within.
4 But why does my heart leap again, and my soul
5 with a whip struck from within forced to speak out its message to all?
6 But yet again I will proclaim all things
7 which God commands me to proclaim to men.
8 Men, that in your image have a form
9 fashioned by God, why do you stray in vain
10 and do not walk in the straight way, always mindful of the immortal Maker? God is one,
11 sovereign, ineffable, living in heaven,
12 the self-existent and invisible, himself alone seeing everything;
13 no sculptor’s hand made him, nor is his form
14 shown by man’s art from gold or ivory;
15 but he, eternal Lord, proclaims himself
16 as one who is and was once and will be
17 again in the future. For who, being mortal,
18 can see God with his eyes? Or who can bear
19 to hear the only name of heaven’s great God,
20 the ruler of the world? He by his word created all things, even heaven and sea,
21 and tireless sun, and full moon and bright stars,
22 and mighty mother Tethys, springs and rivers,
23 imperishable fire, and days and nights.
24 This is the God who formed four-lettered Adam,
25 the first one formed, and filling with his name
26 East, west, and south, and north. He is the same
27 who fixed the pattern of the human form,
28 and made wild beasts, and creeping things, and birds.
29 You do not worship nor do you fear God,
30 but go astray in vain and bend the knee to serpents, and make offering to cats,
31 and idols, and stone images of men,
32 and sit before the doors of godless temples;
33 you guard him who is God, who keeps all things,
34 and merry with the wickedness of stones
35 forget the judgment of the immortal Savior who made the heaven and earth. Ah! a race
36 that delights in blood, deceitful, vile,
37 ungodly, false, double-tongued, immoral men,
38 adulterous, idolatrous, designing fraud,
39 an evil madness raving in their hearts,
40 for themselves plundering, having a shameless soul;
41 for no one who has riches will share
42 with another, but terrible wickedness will be
43 among all mortals, and for the sake of gain
44 many widows will not keep faith at all,
45 but secretly love others, and those who have husbands do not keep the bond of life.
46 But when Rome also rules over Egypt
47 governing always, then there will appear the greatest kingdom of the immortal King
48 over men. And a holy Lord will come
49 to hold the scepter over every land
50 to all ages of fast-hastening time.
51 And then relentless anger will come
52 on Latin men; three, by a pitiful fate, will
53 damage Rome. And all men will perish,
54 with their own houses, when from heaven there will flow
55 a fiery cataract. Ah, wretched me! When will that day and when will judgment come
56 of the immortal God, the mighty King?
57 But just now, you cities, you are built and all adorned with temples and race-grounds,
58 markets, and images of wood, of gold,
59 of silver and of stone, so that you may come
60 to the bitter day. For it will come, when there will pass among all men a stench
61 of sulphur. Yet I will declare each thing,
62 in all the cities where men suffer troubles. From the Sebastenes Beliar will come
63 later, and the height of hills he will
64 establish, and will make the sea stand still
65 and the great fiery sun and the bright moon and he will raise the dead, and many signs
66 perform before men: but nothing will be brought
67 by him to completion but deceit,
68 and many mortals will be led astray
69 Hebrews both true and chosen, and lawless men
70 besides who never listened to God’s word.
71 But when the threats of the mighty God
72 draw near, and a flaming power will come
73 by wave to the earth, it will consume
74 both Beliar and all the haughty men
75 who put their trust in him. And then the whole world will be governed by the hands
76 of a woman and obedient everywhere.
77 Then when a widow over all the world
78 gains the rule, and casts in the mighty sea
79 both gold and silver, also brass and iron
80 of short-lived men casts into the deep, then all the elements will be stripped
81 of order, when the God who lives on high
82 rolls up the heaven, even as a scroll is rolled;
83 and to the mighty earth and sea will fall
84 the entire multiform sky; and there will flow
85 a tireless cataract of raging fire, and it will burn the land, and burn the sea,
86 and heavenly sky, and night, and day, and melt
87 creation itself together and pick out
88 what is pure. No more laughing spheres of light,
89 nor night, nor dawn, nor many days of care,
90 nor spring, nor winter, nor the summer-time, nor autumn. And then of the mighty God
91 the judgment midway in a mighty age
92 will come, when all these things happen.
93 Navigable waters and each land
94 of the Orient and of the Occident,
95 all things will be subject to him who comes into the world again, and therefore he
96 himself became first conscious of his power.

The Tower of Babel

97 But when the threats of the mighty God
98 are fulfilled, which he threatened mortals once,
99 when in Assyrian land they built a tower;--
100 and they all spoke one language, and resolved to climb up into the starry heaven;
101 but on the air the Immortal at once put
102 a mighty force; and then winds from above threw down the great tower and stirred mortals up
103 to quarrelling with each other; therefore men
104 gave to that city the name of Babylon;--

The Titans and the Division of the Earth

105 now when the tower fell and the tongues of men
106 turned to all sorts of sounds, at once all earth
107 was filled with men and kingdoms were divided;
108 and then the tenth generation appeared
109 of mortal men, from the time when the flood
110 came upon earlier men. And Cronos reigned, and Titan and Iapetus; and men called them⁠a
111 best offspring of Gaia and of Uranus,
112 giving to them names both of earth and heaven, since they were the very first of mortal men.
113 So there were three divisions of the earth⁠b
114 according to the allotment of each man,
115 and each one having his own portion reigned and did not fight; for a father’s oaths were there
116 and their portions were equal. But the time
117 of full old age came on the father,
118 and he died; and the sons breaking oaths
119 stirred up against each other bitter strife,
120 which one should have the royal rank and rule over all mortals; and against each other
121 Cronos and Titan fought. But Rhea and Gaia,
122 and Aphrodite fond of crowns, Demeter,
123 and Hestia and Dione with beautiful hair
124 brought them to friendship, and together called
125 all who were kings, both brothers and near kin,
126 and others of the same ancestral blood,
127 and they judged Cronos should reign as king of all,
128 for he was oldest and of noblest form.
129 But Titan laid on Cronos mighty oaths
130 to raise no male children, so that he
131 himself might reign when age and fate came
132 to Cronos. And whenever Rhea gave birth
133 the Titans sat beside her, and all males
134 tore to pieces, but let the females live
135 to be raised by the mother. But when now
136 at the third birth the revered Rhea gave birth,
137 she gave birth to Hera first; and when they saw
138 a female offspring, the fierce Titan men
139 went off to their homes. And then
140 Rhea bore a male child, and having bound three men of Crete by oath she quickly sent
141 him into Phrygia to be raised apart in secret; therefore they named him Zeus,
142 for he was sent away. And thus she sent
143 Poseidon also secretly away. And Pluto, third, Rhea once again,
144 noblest of women, bore at Dodona,
145 from where Europus’ river’s liquid course flows, and with Peneus mixed pours into the sea
146 its water, and men call it Stygian.
147 But when the Titans heard that there were sons
148 kept secretly, whom Cronos and his wife
149 Rhea fathered, then Titan sixty youths
150 gathered together, and held fast in chains Cronos and his wife Rhea, and concealed
151 them in the earth and guarded them in bonds.
152 And then the sons of powerful Cronos heard,
153 and they aroused a great war and uproar.
154 And this is the beginning of terrible war
155 among all mortals. For it is indeed with mortals the prime origin of war.
156 And then God awarded the Titans evil.
157 And all of Titans and born of Cronos
158 died. But then as time rolled around there rose
159 the Egyptian kingdom, then that of the Persians
160 and of the Medes, and Ethiopians, and of Assyria and Babylon,
161 and then that of the Macedonians,

World Kingdoms and the Power of Rome

162 Egyptian yet again, then that of Rome. And then a message of the mighty God
163 was set within my heart, and it told me
164 to proclaim through all earth and in royal hearts
165 plant things which are to be. And to my mind this God revealed first, how many kingdoms
166 have been gathered together of mankind.
167 For first of all the house of Solomon will include horsemen of Phoenicia
168 and Syria, and of the islands too,
169 and the race of Pamphylians and Persians
170 and Phrygians, Carians, and Mysians and the race of the Lydians rich in gold.
171 And then Hellenes, proud and impure, will rule,
172 then a Macedonian nation will rule, great, shrewd, who as a fearful cloud of war
173 will come to mortals. But the God of heaven
174 will utterly destroy them from the depth.
175 And then there will be another kingdom, white
176 and many-headed, from the western sea,
177 which will rule much land, and shake many men,
178 and to all kings bring terror afterward,
179 and out of many cities will destroy
180 much gold and silver; but in the vast earth
181 there will again be gold, and silver too,
182 and ornament. And they will oppress mortals; and to those men there will be great disaster,
183 when they begin unrighteous arrogance.
184 And at once in them there will be a force
185 of wickedness, male will consort with male, and they will place children in dens of shame;
186 and in those days there will be among men
187 a great affliction, and it will disturb
188 all things, and break all things, and fill all things
189 with evils by a shameful covetousness,
190 and by ill-gotten wealth in many lands, but most of all in Macedonia.
191 And it will stir up hatred, and all deceit
192 will be with them even to the seventh kingdom, of which a king of Egypt will be king
193 who will be a descendant from the Greeks.
194 And then the nation of the mighty God
195 will be strong again and they will be guides of life to all men. But why did God place

The Titans and the People of the Temple

196 this also in my mind to tell: what first,
197 and what next, and what evil will be last
198 on all men? Which of these will take the lead?
199 First on the Titans God will bring evil.
200 For they will pay to mighty Cronos’s sons the penalty, since they bound
201 both Cronos and the dearly loved mother.
202 Again there will be tyrants for the Greeks
203 and fierce kings arrogant and impure,
204 adulterous and altogether bad;
205 and for men there will be no more rest from war. And the feared Phrygians will all perish,
206 and evil will come to Troy that day. And to the Persians and Assyrians
207 evil will at once come, and to all Egypt
208 and Libya and the Ethiopians, and to the Carians and Pamphylians—
209 evil to pass from one place to another,
210 and to all mortals. Why now one by one do I speak out? But when the first receive
211 fulfillment, then at once will come on men
212 the second. So the very first I’ll tell.
213 An evil will come to pious men
214 who live by the great temple of Solomon
215 and who are descendants of righteous men. Of all these alike I will also tell
216 the tribe and line of fathers and homeland—
217 all things with care, shrewd-minded mortal.

The Law and the Life of the Jewish People

218 There is a city ... on the earth,
219 ur of the Chaldees, from which there is a race
220 of men most righteous, to whom both goodwill and noble deeds have always mattered.
221 For they have no concern about the course
222 of the sun’s revolution, nor the moon’s, nor marvels beneath the earth, nor depth
223 of joy-giving sea Oceanus,
224 nor signs of sneezing, nor the wings of birds,
225 nor soothsayers, nor wizards, nor enchanters, nor tricks of dull words of ventriloquists,
226 neither do they astrologize with skill
227 of the Chaldeans, nor astronomize;
228 for these are all deceptive, in so far
229 as foolish men go seeking day by day
230 training their souls to no useful work;
231 and then they taught miserable men
232 deceptions, from which to mortals on the earth
233 come many evils leading them astray
234 from good ways and just deeds. But they care
235 for righteousness and virtue, and not greed, which breeds countless evils for mortal men,
236 war and unending famine. But with them
237 just measure, both in fields and cities, holds,
238 nor do they steal from each other in the night,
239 nor drive off herds of cattle, sheep, and goats,
240 nor does a neighbor remove landmarks of a neighbor,
241 nor does any man of great wealth grieve the one
242 less favored, nor cause distress to widows,
243 but rather aids them, always helping them
244 with wheat and wine and oil; and always
245 the rich man in the country sends a share at the time of the harvests to those
246 who have nothing, but are needy, thus fulfilling the saying of the mighty God, a hymn
247 in legal setting; for the Heavenly One
248 finished the earth a common good for all. Now when the people of twelve tribes depart
249 from Egypt, and with leaders sent by God
250 by night make their way by a pillar of fire and during all the day by one of cloud,
251 for them then God will appoint a leader—
252 a great man, Moses, whom a princess found
253 beside a marsh, and carried off and raised
254 and called her son. And at the time he came
255 as leader for the people whom God led from Egypt to the steel Sinai mount,
256 God delivered them his own law from heaven
257 writing on two flat stones all righteous things which he commanded to do; and if, perhaps,
258 one takes no notice, he must to the law
259 make amends, either at men’s hands
260 or, if he escapes men’s notice, he will be destroyed, paying the penalty in full.
261 For the Heavenly finished earth a common good
262 for all, and in all hearts as best gift thought.
263 To them alone the generous field yields fruit
264 a hundredfold from one, and thus completes

Exile and Restoration

265 God’s measure. But misfortune will also come to them, and they do not escape from plague.
266 And even you, abandoning your beautiful shrine,
267 will flee away when it becomes your lot
268 to leave the holy land. And you will be
269 carried to the Assyrians, and will see
270 young children and wives serving hostile men; and every means of life and wealth will perish;
271 and every land will be filled up with you,
272 and every sea; and everyone will be offended with your customs; and your land
273 will all be desert; and the fenced altar
274 and temple of the great God and long walls
275 will all fall to the ground, since in your heart the holy law of the immortal God
276 you did not keep, but, erring, you served
277 improper images, and did not fear
278 the immortal Father, God of all mankind,
279 nor want to honor him; but images
280 of mortals you honored. Therefore now for seven decades of time your fruitful land
281 and the wonders of your temple will all lie waste.
282 But there remains for you a fine end
283 and greatest glory, as the immortal God
284 granted you. But wait and trust
285 in the great God’s pure laws, when he lifts your weary knee upright to the light.
286 And then God will send a king from heaven
287 to judge each man in blood and light of fire.
288 There is a royal tribe, the race of which
289 will be unfailing; and as time turns
290 this race will rule and begin to build God’s temple anew. And all the Persian kings
291 will help with bronze and gold and well-made iron.
292 For God himself will give the holy dream
293 by night. And then the temple will again
294 be, as it was before. . . .

Warnings to the Nations

295 Now when my soul had rest from inspired song, and I prayed the great Father for a rest
296 from compulsion; even in my heart again
297 was set a message of the mighty God
298 and he told me to proclaim through all the earth
299 and plant in royal minds things yet to be.
300 And in my mind God put this first to say how many pitiful sufferings
301 the Immortal intended for Babylon
302 because she had destroyed his great temple. Woe, woe to you, Babylon,
303 and for the offspring of the Assyrian men!
304 Through all the earth the rush of sinful men
305 will some day come, and shout of mortal men and stroke of the great God, who inspires songs,
306 will ruin every land. For high in air to you
307 Babylon, it will come from above, and out of heaven from holy ones to you
308 it will come down, and the soul in your children
309 the Eternal will utterly destroy.
310 And then you will be, as you were before, as one not born; and then you will be filled
311 again with blood, as you yourself before
312 shed that of good, just, and holy men,
313 whose blood still cries out to the lofty heaven.
314 To you, Egypt, a great blow will come
315 and dreadful, to your homes, which you hoped might never fall on you. For through your midst
316 a sword will pass, and scattering and death
317 and famine will prevail until of kings
318 the seventh generation, and then cease.
319 Woe to you, land of Gog and Magog
320 in the midst of the rivers of Ethiopia! What pouring out of blood will you receive,
321 and house of judgment among men be called,
322 and your land of much dew will drink black blood! Woe to you, Libya, and woe,
323 both sea and land! Daughters of the west,
324 so you will come to a bitter day.
325 And you will come pursued by terrible strife, dreadful and harsh; there will be again
326 a dreadful judgment, and you will all come
327 by force to destruction, for you tore
328 in pieces the great house of the Immortal,
329 and with iron teeth you chewed it dreadfully.
330 Therefore you will then look at your land full of the dead, some of them fallen by war
331 and by the demon of all violence,
332 famine and plague, and some by barbarous enemies. And all your land will be a wilderness,
333 and your cities will be ruins.
334 And in the west a star will shine out
335 which they will call a comet, sign to men of the sword and of famine and of death,
336 and murder of great leaders and chief men.
337 And yet again there will be among men
338 greatest signs; for deep-eddying Tanais
339 will leave Maeotis’s lake, and there will be
340 down the deep stream a fruitful, furrow’s track, and the vast flow will hold a neck of land.
341 And there are hollow chasms and yawning pits;
342 and many cities, men and all, will fall:— in Asia—Iassus, Cebren, Pandonia,
343 Colophon, Ephesus, Nicaea, Antioch,
344 syagra, Sinope, Smyrna, Myrina,
345 most happy Gaza, Hierapolis, astypalaia; and in Europe—Tanagra,
346 clitor, Basilis, Meropeia, Antigone,
347 magnessa, Mykene, Oiantheia. Know then that the destructive race of Egypt
348 is near destruction, and the past year then
349 is better for the Alexandrians.

Asia and Rome

350 As much of tribute as Rome received from Asia, even three times as many goods
351 Asia will receive back again from Rome,
352 and her destructive outrage pay her back.
353 As many as from Asia ever served
354 a house of the Italians, twenty times
355 as many Italians will serve in Asia in poverty, and incur numerous debts.
356 Virgin, soft rich child of Latin Rome,
357 often at your much-remembered marriage feasts drunk with wine, now you will be a slave
358 and married in no honorable way.
359 And often a mistress will cut your pretty hair,
360 and, taking revenge, cast you down
361 from heaven to earth, and from the earth again
362 raise you to heaven, for mortals of low rank
363 and of unrighteous life are held tightly bound.
364 And of avenging Smyrna overthrown
365 there will be no thought, but by evil plans
366 and wickedness of those who have command Samos will be sand, Delos will be dull,
367 and Rome a room; but the decrees of God will all of them be perfectly fulfilled.
368 And a calm peace will go to Asian land. And Europe will be happy then, well fed,
369 pure air, full of years, strong, and undisturbed
370 by wintry storms and hail, bearing all things, even birds and creeping things and beasts of earth.
371 Oh, how happy on earth that man will be
372 or woman; what an indescribable home
373 of happy ones! For from the starry heaven
374 all good order will come upon mankind,
375 and justice, and the prudent unity which of all things is excellent for men,
376 and kindness, confidence, and love of guests;
377 but lawlessness will depart far from them, blame, envy, anger, and folly; poverty
378 will flee away from men, and force will flee,
379 and murder, deadly conflicts and bitter feuds,
380 and theft, and every evil in those days. But Macedonia will bring to Asia
381 a terrible suffering, and the greatest affliction
382 to Europe will spring up from Cronian stock,
383 a family of bastards and of slaves.
384 And she will tame the walled city of Babylon,
385 and call herself mistress of each land the sun looks down upon, and then come to nothing
386 by ruinous misfortunes, having fame
387 in later generations far distant.

Alexander and His Kingdom

388 And some day into Asia’s prosperous land
389 a man unheard of will come, his shoulders dressed
390 in a purple robe, fierce, unjust, fiery;
391 and this man he who wields the thunderbolt
392 stirred on; and all Asia will bear
393 an evil yoke, and her soil wet with rain
394 shall drink much murder. But even so Hades will
395 destroy the unknown king; and that man’s offspring will at once perish by the race of those
396 whose offspring he himself would gladly destroy; producing one root which the curse of men
397 will cut from ten horns, and plant by their side
398 another plant. A purple-clad father will cut off a warlike father, and Ares,
399 deadly and hostile, by a grandson’s hand
400 will himself perish; and then the horn planted beside them will at once hold the rule.

Troy, Homer, and the Sibyl

401 And to life-sustaining Phrygia
402 at once there will be a certain sign, when Rhea’s blood-stained race, in the great earth
403 blooming perennial in impervious roots,
404 will, root and branch, in one night disappear
405 with a city, men and all, of the Earth-shaker
406 Poseidon; which place they will some day call
407 dorylaeum, of dark ancient Phrygia,
408 much-mourned. Therefore that time will be called
409 Earth-shaker; he will break up dens of earth
410 and demolish walls. And not signs of good but a beginning of evil will be made;
411 the deadly violence of general war
412 you’ll have, sons of Aeneas, Native blood
413 of Ilus from the soil. But afterwards
414 you will become plunder for greedy men.
415 Ilium, I pity you; for there will bloom in Sparta an Erinys very fair,
416 ever-famous, noblest offspring, and will leave on Asia and Europe a wide-spreading wave;
417 but to you most of all she’ll bear and cause
418 wailings and toils and groans; but there will be undying fame with those who are to come.
419 And there will be an old mortal then,
420 false writer and of doubtful native land; and in his eyes the light will fade away;
421 large mind and verses measured with great skill
422 he will have and be blended with two names, will call himself a Chian and will write
423 of Ilium, not truthfully, indeed,
424 but skillfully; for of my verse and meters
425 he will be master; for he will first open my books with his hands; but he himself
426 will greatly embellish helmeted chiefs of war,
427 hector of Priam and Achilles, son
428 of Peleus, and the others who care
429 for warlike deeds. And also by their side
430 he will make gods stand, empty-headed men, false-writing every way. And it will be
431 glory rather, widely spread, for them to die at Ilium; but he himself
432 will also receive his reward.

Further Warnings to the Nations

433 Also a Locrian race will cause Lycia many evils. And you, Chalcedon,
434 holding by lot a strait of narrow sea,
435 an Aetolian youth will some day plunder. Cyzicus, also your vast wealth the sea
436 will break off. And, Byzantium of Ares,
437 you will some day be laid waste by Asia,
438 and also groans and immeasurable blood
439 you will receive. And Cragus, lofty mountain
440 of Lycia, from your peaks by yawning chasms of opened rock babbling water will flow,
441 until even Patara’s oracles cease.
442 Cyzicus, who live by Propontis
443 the wine-producing, around you Rhyndacus
444 will crash the crested wave. And you, Rhodes,
445 daughter of day, will long be free, and your happiness will be great afterwards,
446 and on the sea your power will be supreme.
447 But afterwards you will become plunder for greedy men, and put upon your neck
448 by beauty and by wealth a fearful yoke.
449 A Lydian earthquake will again plunder
450 the power of Persia, and most horribly the people of Europe and Asia will suffer pain.
451 And Sidon’s harmful king with battle-din
452 dreadful will bring a mournful overthrow to the seafaring Samians. On the soil
453 slain men’s dark blood will babble to the sea;
454 and wives together with the noble brides
455 will lament their outrageous insolence,
456 some for their bridegrooms, some for fallen sons.
457 Sign of Cyprus, may an earthquake waste
458 your phalanxes away, and many souls
459 together Hades will hold in charge.
460 And Trallis near Ephesus, and walls well made, and very precious wealth of men
461 will be dissolved by earthquake; and the land will burst out with hot water; and the earth
462 will swallow down those who are by the fire
463 and stench of sulphur heavily oppressed. And Samos will in time build royal houses.
464 But to you, Italy, no foreign war
465 will come, but pitiful tribal blood not easily exhausted, much renowned,
466 will make you, impudent one, desolate.
467 And you yourself stretched beside hot ashes, as you did not foresee in your own heart,
468 will kill yourself. And you will not of men
469 be the mother, but a nurse of beasts of prey.
470 But when a man comes from Italy, a spoiler, then, Laodicea, you,
471 beautiful city of the Carians
472 by Lycus’s wonderful water, falling prone,
473 will weep in silence for your boastful father.
474 Thracian Crobyzi will rise up on Haemus.
475 Chatter of teeth to the Campanians comes because of wasting famine; Corsica
476 weeps for her old father, and Sardinia
477 will by great storms of winter and the strokes
478 of a holy God sink down in ocean depths,
479 great wonder to those of the sea.
480 Ah, ah, how many young virgins Hades will wed, and of as many youths
481 the deep will take without funeral rites!
482 Ah, ah, the helpless little ones and the vast riches swimming in the sea!
483 Happy land of Mysians, suddenly
484 a royal race will be formed. Truly now
485 Chalcedon will not last long. And there will be a very bitter grief
486 to the Galatians. And to Tenedos
487 a last but greatest evil will come. And Sicyon, with strong yells, and Corinth, you
488 will boast over all, but flute will sound like strain.

Disasters and the Coming Fire

489 Now, when my soul had rest from inspired song,
490 even again there was set within my heart a message of the mighty God, and he
491 commanded me to prophesy on earth.
492 Woe, woe to the race of Phoenician men and women, and all cities by the sea;
493 not one of you will in the common light
494 remain before the shining of the sun,
495 nor will there any longer be number and tribe of life, because of unjust speech
496 and the lawless, impure life which they all lived,
497 opening an impure mouth, and fearful words
498 deceitful and unrighteous forth,
499 and stood against the God, the King,
500 and opened a loathsome mouth deceitfully therefore may he subdue them terribly
501 by blows over all the earth, and bitter fate
502 God will send on them burning from the ground.
503 Cities and of the cities the foundations.
504 Woe, woe to you, Crete! There will come to you
505 a very painful blow, and terribly the Eternal will sack you; and again
506 every land will see you black with smoke,
507 fire will never leave you, but you will be burned. Woe, woe to you, Thrace! So you will come
508 beneath a servile yoke, when the Galatians
509 united with the sons of Dardanus
510 rush on to ravage Hellas, the evil will be yours; and to a foreign land
511 you will give much, not receive anything. Woe to you, Gog and Magog, and to all,
512 one after another, Mardians and Daians;
513 how many evils fate will bring on you! Woe also to the soil of Lycia,
514 and those of Mysia and Phrygia.
515 And many nations of Pamphylians, and Lydians, Carians, Cappadocians,
516 and Ethiopian and Arabian men
517 of a strange tongue will fall. How now can I
518 speak fittingly of each? For on all the nations
519 which live on earth the Highest will send terrible plague.
520 When now again a barbarous nation comes against the Greeks it will kill many heads
521 of chosen men; and they will tear to pieces
522 many fat flocks of sheep of men, and herds
523 of horses and of mules and lowing cattle;
524 and they will burn well-made houses with fire
525 lawlessly; and to a foreign land they will lead many slaves away by force,
526 and children, and soft, finely dressed women
527 from bridal chambers creeping on before with delicate feet; and they will be bound fast
528 with fetters by their enemies of foreign tongue,
529 suffering all fearful outrage; and to them
530 there will not be one to supply the toil of battle and come to their help in life.
531 And they will see their goods and all their wealth
532 enrich the enemy; and there will be a trembling of the knees. And there will flee
533 a hundred, and one will destroy them all;
534 and five will rout a mighty company;
535 but they, among themselves mixed shamefully, will by war and terrible tumult bring delight
536 to enemies, but sorrow to the Greeks.
537 And then upon all Hellas there will be a servile yoke; and war and pestilence
538 will come together upon all mortals.
539 And God will make the mighty heaven on high
540 like brass and over all the earth a drought, and earth itself like iron. And then
541 all mortals will lament the barrenness
542 and lack of cultivation; and on earth he will set, who created heaven and earth,
543 a much-distressing fire; and of all men
544 only the third part will remain after that.

An Appeal to the Greeks

545 Greece, why have you trusted mortal men as leaders, who cannot escape from death?
546 And why do you bring your foolish gifts
547 to the dead and sacrifice to idols?
548 Who put the error in your heart to do
549 these things and leave the face of God the mighty?
550 Honor the All-Father’s name, and do not let it escape you. It is now a thousand years,
551 yes, and five hundred more, since haughty kings
552 ruled over the Greeks, who first to mortal men
553 introduced evils, setting up for worship
554 many images of gods that are dead,
555 because of which you were taught foolish thoughts.
556 But when the anger of the mighty God
557 comes upon you, then you’ll recognize
558 the face of God the mighty. And all souls
559 of men, with mighty groaning lifting up
560 their hands to the broad heaven, will begin to call the great King helper, and to seek
561 the rescuer from great anger who is to be.
562 But come and learn this and store in your hearts,
563 what troubles in the rolling years will come.
564 And what as whole burnt-offering Hellas brought
565 of cows and bellowing bulls to the temple of the great God, she from harsh-sounding war
566 and fear and pestilence will flee away
567 and escape again from the servile yoke.
568 But until that time there will be a race
569 of godless men, even when that fated day
570 reaches its end. For you should not make offering to God until all things happen,
571 which God alone will intend not in vain
572 to be all fulfilled; and strong force will urge.

Praise of Jewish Worship and Conduct

573 And there will be again a holy race
574 of godly men who, keeping to the counsels
575 and mind of the Most High, will greatly honor the great God’s temple with drink-offerings,
576 burnt-offerings, and holy hecatombs,
577 with sacrifices of fat bulls, choice rams,
578 firstborn of sheep and the fat thighs of lambs,
579 sacredly offering whole burnt-offerings
580 on the great altar. And in righteousness, having obtained the law of the Most High,
581 blessed, they will live in cities and rich fields.
582 And prophets will be set on high for them by the Immortal, bringing great delight
583 to all mortals. For to them alone
584 the mighty God gave his gracious counsel
585 and faith and noblest thought within their hearts; they have not been led astray by vain things,
586 nor do they pay honor to the works of men
587 made of gold, brass, silver, and ivory,
588 nor statues of dead gods of wood and stone
589 smeared clay, figures of the painter’s art,
590 and all that empty-minded mortals want;
591 but they lift up their pure arms to heaven,
592 rise from the couch at daybreak, always hands⁠c
593 cleanse with water, and honor only Him
594 who is immortal and who always rules,
595 and then their parents; and above all men they respect the lawful marriage-bed;
596 and they do not have base intercourse with boys,
597 as do Phoenicians, Latins, and Egyptians
598 and spacious Greece, and many more nations
599 of Persians and Galatians and all Asia,
600 transgressing the immortal God’s pure law

The Coming Judgment

601 which they were under. Therefore on all men
602 the Immortal will put ruin, famine, pains,
603 groans, war, and pestilence and mournful troubles;
604 because they would not honor piously
605 the immortal Father of all men, but revered
606 and worshiped idols made with hands, which things
607 mortals themselves will cast down and for shame
608 conceal in clefts of rocks, when a young king,
609 the seventh of Egypt, rules his own land,
610 reckoned from the dominion of the Greeks, which countless Macedonian men will rule;
611 and a great king will come from Asia,
612 a fiery eagle, who with foot and horse will cover all the land, cut up all things,
613 and fill all things with evils; he will cast
614 the Egyptian kingdom down; and taking off
615 all its possessions carry them away over the spacious surface of the sea.
616 And then they will before the mighty God,
617 the immortal King, bend the fair white knee on the much-nourishing earth; and all the works
618 made with hands will fall by a flame of fire.

The Renewal of the Earth

619 And then God will give great joy on men;
620 for land and trees and countless flocks of sheep will offer their genuine fruit to men—wine,
621 and the sweet honey, and white milk, and wheat,
622 which is for mortals of all things the best.
623 But you, mortal full of many tricks,
624 do not delay and loiter, but you,
625 tossed to and fro, turn and appease God. Offer to God your hecatombs of bulls
626 and firstborn lambs and goats, as time turns.
627 But appease him, the immortal God,
628 if perhaps he shows mercy. For he is
629 the only God, and there is no other.
630 And honor justice and oppress no man. For these things the Immortal imposes
631 on miserable men. But take note of
632 the cause of the anger of the mighty God,
633 when on all mortals there will come the height
634 of pestilence and, conquered, they will meet
635 a fearful judgment, and king will seize king
636 and wrench his land away, and nations bring
637 ruin on nations and lords plunder tribes,
638 and chiefs all flee into another land,
639 and the land change its men, and foreign rule
640 ravage all Hellas and drain the rich land of its wealth, and to strife among themselves
641 because of gold and silver they will come—
642 the love of gain an evil shepherdess will be for cities—in a foreign land.
643 And they will all be without burial,
644 and vultures and wild beasts of earth will strip
645 their flesh; and when these things happen,
646 vast earth will waste the remains of the dead.
647 And it will be all unsown and unplowed,
648 proclaiming sad the filth of men defiled
649 many lengths of time in the revolving years,
650 and shields and javelins and all sorts of arms;
651 and the forest wood will not be cut for fire.

The King Sent to End War

652 And then God will send a king from the East,
653 who will make all earth cease from evil war,
654 killing some, others binding with strong oaths.
655 And he will not do all these things by his own plans, but obey the good decrees
656 of God the mighty. And with fine wealth,

The Temple and Its Enemies

657 with gold and silver and purple ornament,
658 the temple of the mighty God again
659 will be weighed down; and the full-bearing earth
660 and the sea will be filled full of good things. And kings against each other will begin
661 to hold ill will, encouraging evils in their hearts.
662 Envy is not a good to wretched men.
663 But again kings of nations on this land
664 will rush in masses, bringing on themselves
665 destruction; for they’ll intend to plunder the great God’s temple and the noblest men.
666 When they reach the land, polluted kings
667 will each set his throne around the city
668 and have his people that do not obey God.

Judgment upon the Nations

669 And then God will speak with a mighty voice
670 to all ignorant people of an empty mind, and judgment from the mighty God will come
671 upon them, and they will all be destroyed
672 by his immortal arm. And fiery swords
673 will fall from heaven on earth; and great bright lights
674 will come down flaming in the midst of men.
675 And in those days earth, all-mother, will reel by his immortal arm, and shoals of fish
676 in the deep sea, and all wild beasts of earth,
677 and countless tribes of winged birds, and all
678 the souls of men and every sea will tremble
679 before the face of the Immortal One,
680 and there will be dismay. He will break apart high mountain peaks and monstrous hills,
681 and dark Erebus will appear to all.
682 And misty gorges in the lofty hills
683 will be full of the dead; and rocks will stream
684 with blood and every torrent fill the plain.
685 And well-built walls of evil-minded men will all fall to the earth, since they did not know
686 the law nor judgment of the mighty God,
687 but with a senseless soul all hurried on
688 against the temple and raised up their spears.
689 And God will judge all by war and by sword
690 and by fire and by overwhelming storm; and there will be sulphur from heaven, and stones
691 and great and heavy hail; and death will come
692 upon the quadrupeds. And then they will
693 know God, the Immortal, who performs these things;
694 and wailing, and upon the boundless earth
695 there will be at once a shout of perishing men; and all the unholy will be bathed in blood;
696 and earth herself will also drink the blood
697 of the perishing, and beasts be gorged with flesh.
698 And all these things the great eternal God
699 himself told me to proclaim. And that will not
700 be unaccomplished, or be unfulfilled, whatever he put only in my heart;
701 for God’s spirit in the world is truthful.

The Deliverance of the Chosen People

702 But children of the mighty God will all live in peace around the temple again,
703 rejoicing in those things which he will give
704 who is Creator, righteous Judge and King.
705 For he himself, great, present far and wide, will be a shelter, as on all sides around
706 a wall of flaming fire. And they will be
707 in cities and in country without war.
708 For not the hand of evil war, but rather
709 the Immortal will himself be their defender
710 and the hand of the Holy One. And then all the islands and the cities will tell how much
711 the immortal God loves those men; for all things
712 help them in conflict and deliver them
713 heaven, and divinely fashioned sun, and moon.
714 And in those days earth, all-mother, will reel.
715 They will send sweet word from their mouths in hymns: “Come, falling on the earth let us all pray to
716 the immortal King, and great eternal God.
717 Let us go in procession to the temple,
718 since he alone is Lord; and let us all
719 meditate on the law of God most high,
720 which is most righteous of all laws on earth.
721 And from the path of the Immortal we
722 have wandered and with senseless soul we honor
723 works made by hand and wooden images
724 of dead men.” These things souls of faithful melt
725 will cry out: Come, having fallen on our faces at the house of God, let us with our hymns
726 make joy to God the Father at our homes,
727 supplied through all our land with arms of enemies
728 seven lengths of time in the revolving years;
729 even shields and helmets and all sorts of arms,
730 and a great store of bows and barbed arrows; for forest wood will not be cut for

A Renewed Appeal to the Greeks

731 but, wretched Hellas, stop your arrogance
732 and be wise; and plead with the Immortal One
733 magnanimous, and be upon your guard.
734 Send now against this city yet again
735 the thoughtless people, who have come out of the holy land of the mighty One.
736 Do not move Camarina; for it is better
737 that she stays unmoved; a leopard from the lair, do not let an evil meet with you.
738 But keep off, do not hold within your heart
739 an arrogant and overbearing soul,
740 ready for mighty contest. And serve God the mighty, so that you may share those things;

The Day of Judgment

741 and when that fated day reaches its end
742 and judgment of the immortal God comes
743 to mortals, great judgment and power will come
744 upon men. For all-mother earth will yield
745 to mortals the best, boundless fruit, wheat, wine, oil;
746 also from heaven a delightful drink
747 of honey and trees will give their fruit,
748 and there will be fatted sheep and cattle,
749 young lambs and kids of goats; earth will burst out
750 with sweet springs of white milk; and the cities will be full of good things and the fields fat;
751 there will be neither sword nor uproar on the earth;
752 earth will no more groan heavily and quake;
753 nor will there be war on earth any longer, nor drought,
754 nor famine, nor the fruit-destroying hail;
755 but great peace, will be upon all the earth, and king will be friend to king until the end
756 of the age, and over all earth common law
757 the Immortal will in the starry heaven
758 perfect for men, concerning whatever things
759 have been done by miserable mortals;
760 for he alone is God, there is no other;
761 and he’ll burn the stern rage of men with fire.
762 But change entirely the thoughts in your heart,
763 and flee unrighteous worship; serve the One
764 who lives; guard against adultery
765 and deeds of lewdness; raise your own children and do not murder; for the Immortal One
766 is angry with him who sins in these things.

The Kingdom of Peace

767 And then a kingdom over all mankind
768 he will raise up for ages, who once gave
769 holy law to the pious, to whom
770 he pledged to open every land, the world and portals of the blessed, and all joys,
771 and immortal mind and eternal bliss.
772 And out of every land to the house of the great God they will bring frankincense
773 and gifts, and there will be no other house
774 to be consulted by men yet to come,
775 but what God gave for faithful men to honor;
776 for mortals temple of the mighty God
777 will call it. And all pathways of the plain
778 and rough hills and high mountains and wild waves
779 of the deep will be easy in those days
780 for crossing and for sailing; for all peace on the land of the good will come; and sword
781 the prophets of the mighty God will remove;
782 for they are judges and the righteous kings of mortals. And there will be righteous wealth
783 among mankind; for of the mighty God
784 this is the judgment and also the power.
785 Take heart, young woman, and be glad; for he who made the heaven and earth gave you
786 joy in your age. And he will live in you;
787 and yours will be immortal and wolves
788 and lambs will feed on grass in the mountains⁠d
789 together, and leopards will graze with kids;
790 and bears will stay among the pasturing calves;
791 and the carnivorous lion will eat chaff
792 at the manger like the cow; and little children
793 will lead them in bonds; for he will make beasts
794 helpless on earth. With babies will fall asleep
795 serpents, along with asps, and do no harm; for the hand of God will be over them.
796 Now I tell you a very clear sign,
797 so that you may know when the end of all things
798 on earth will be. When in the starry heaven
799 swords will point by night straight toward west and east,
800 at once there will also be from the heaven a cloud of dust borne forth to all the earth,
801 and the sun’s brightness in the midst of heaven
802 will be eclipsed, and the moon’s beams appear
803 and come again on earth; by drops of blood
804 dripping from the rocks a sign will be;
805 and in the cloud you will see a war
806 of foot and horse, like the chase of wild beasts
807 in the dense fog. This end of all things God
808 will complete, whose dwelling is in heaven.
809 But all must sacrifice to the great King.

The Sibyl’s Ancestry

810 These things I show you, I who madly left the long walls of Assyrian Babylon
811 for Hellas to proclaim to all the anger of God, fire sent...
812 And so that I might prophesy to mortals
813 of divine mysteries. And men will say in Hellas that I am of foreign Land,
814 born of Erythre, shameless; others say
815 that I’m a Sibyl, born of mother Circe and father Gnostos raving mad and false;
816 but at that time when all things come to pass
817 you will remember me, and no one any more
818 will call me mad, the great God’s prophetess,
819 for he showed me what happened formerly
820 to my ancestors; what things were the first those God made known to me; and in my mind
821 God put all things to be afterwards,
822 so that I might prophesy of things to come, and things that were, and tell them to men.
823 For when the world was deluged with a flood
824 of waters, and one man of good reputation
825 alone was left and in a wooden house sailed over the waters with the beasts and birds,
826 in order that the world might be refilled,
827 I was his son’s bride and was of his race to whom the first things happened, and the last
828 were all made known; and thus from my own mouth
829 let all these truthful things remain declared.

Book 4: The Ten Generations

1 People of boastful Asia and of Europe,
2 hear how much, all too true, I am about,
3 through a many-toned mouth, from my great hall
4 to prophesy; I am no oracle
5 of lying Phoebus whom vain men called god, and further falsely called a seer;
6 but of the mighty God, whom hands of men
7 did not form like speechless idols carved of stone. For he does not have for his home a stone
8 utterly mute and toothless, drawn into a temple,
9 a very great disgrace to mortals;
10 for he cannot be seen from earth nor measured
11 by mortal eyes, nor formed by mortal hand;
12 he, looking down at once on all, is seen
13 himself by no one; to him belong murky night,
14 and day, and sun, and stars, and moon, and seas
15 with fish, and land, and rivers, and the mouth of perennial springs, creatures meant for life,
16 and rains at once producing fruit of the field
17 and tree and vine and oil. This God drove a whip through my heart within to make me tell
18 truly to men what has now happened
19 and how much will happen to them yet again
20 from the first generation to the eleventh; for he himself by bringing them about
21 will prove all things. But in all things,
22 people, listen closely to the Sibyl,
23 who pours a truthful voice from her holy mouth.
24 They will be blessed among men on the earth
25 all who love the mighty God, offering him praise before they drink and eat;
26 trusting in piety. When they see
27 temples and altars, figures of mute stones,
28 stone images and statues made with hands,
29 polluted with the blood of living things
30 and sacrifices of four-footed beasts, they will reject them all; and they will look
31 to the great glory of one God and not
32 commit presumptuous murder nor dispose of stolen gain, which are the most horrible things;
33 nor shameful longing for another’s bed
34 do they have, nor vile and hateful lust for males.
35 Their manner, piety, and character will other men, who love a shameless life,
36 never imitate; but, mocking them
37 with jest and joke like babies in senselessness,
38 they’ll falsely charge them with as many deeds
39 blameworthy and wicked as they do themselves.
40 For the whole race of humankind is slow to believe. But when the judgment of the world
41 and mortals comes which God himself will bring
42 judging at once the impious and the pious,
43 then indeed he will send the ungodly back
44 to lower darkness and then they will know
45 how much impiety they committed; but the pious will still remain upon the fruitful land,
46 God giving to them breath and life and grace.
47 But all these things in the tenth generation will happen; and now what will be
48 from the first generation, I’ll tell those.

The Sequence of World Kingdoms

49 First the Assyrians will rule over all mortals,
50 and for six generations hold the power
51 of the world, from the time the God of heaven
52 being angry against the cities and all men
53 covered earth with sea in a bursting deluge.
54 The Medes will overpower them, but on the throne
55 will triumph for only two generations; in those times these events will happen:
56 dark night will come at midday
57 and from the heaven the stars and circling moon
58 will disappear; and earth in tumult shaken
59 by a great earthquake will throw many cities
60 and works of men headlong; and from the deep the islands of the Sea will peer out.
61 But when the great Euphrates, with blood,
62 is surging, then dreadful strife will also be set between the Medes and Persians
63 in battle; and the Medes will fall and flee
64 beneath Persian spears beyond the mighty water
65 of Tigris. And the Persian power will be greatest in all the world, and they will have
66 one generation of most prosperous rule.
67 And there will be as many evil deeds as men will wish away—the din of war,
68 and murders, and disputes, and banishments,
69 and overthrow of towers and waste of cities,
70 when very glorious Hellas sails over broad Hellespont, and brings
71 to Phrygia sorrow and to Asia doom.
72 And to Egypt, land of many furrows, wretched famine will come, and barrenness
73 will prevail for twenty circling years,
74 when the Nile, grain-nourisher, hides
75 his dark wave somewhere underneath the earth. And a great king will come from Asia
76 bearing a spear, with countless ships,
77 and he will walk the wet paths of the deep, and will sail after he has cut the mount
78 of lofty summit; he will flee
79 from battle, and fearful Asia will receive him.
80 And a stream of powerful fire will set wretched Sicily all aflame while Etna
81 disgorges her flame; and in the deep chasm
82 the mighty city Croton will fall down.
83 And there will be strife in Hellas; they will rage
84 against each other, cast down many cities,
85 and fighting make an end of many men; but the strife is equally balanced between both.
86 But, when the race of mortal men comes
87 to the tenth generation, also then a servile yoke will fall on the Persians
88 and terror too. But when the Macedonians
89 boast the scepter, there will be for Thebes
90 an evil conquest from behind, and Carians
91 will live in Tyre, and Tyrians be destroyed.
92 And Babylon, great to see but small to fight,
93 will stand with walls that were built in vain hopes.
94 Macedonians will live in Bactria;
95 but those from Susa and from Bactria
96 will all flee into the land of Hellas.
97 It will take place among those yet to be, when silver-eddying Pyramus, his banks
98 overflowing, comes to the sacred isle.
99 And Cibyra will fall and Cyzicus,
100 when, earth being shaken by earthquakes, cities fall. And sand will hide all Samos under banks.
101 And Delos will be visible no more, but things of Delos will all be invisible.

Rome and Its Coming Troubles

102 And evil will come to Rhodes last, but greatest. The Macedonian power will not last;
103 but from the west a great Italian war will flourish, under which the world will bear
104 a servile yoke and the Italians serve.
105 And you, wretched Corinth, you will look one day upon your conquest. And your tower,
106 Carthage, will press low on the ground. Wretched Laodicea, one day
107 an earthquake will lay you low, casting headlong down,
108 but you, a city firmly set, will stand again. Beautiful Lycia Myra,
109 the agitated earth will never
110 set you fast; but falling headlong down on earth you will, like a foreigner, beg
111 to flee away into another land,
112 when one day the dark water of the sea with thunders and earthquakes stops the din
113 of Patara for its impieties.
114 Also for you, Armenia, there remains
115 a slavish fate; and there will also come to Solyma an evil blast of war
116 from Italy, and plunder God’s great temple.
117 But when these, trusting folly, cast off their piety and commit murders
118 around the temple, then from Italy
119 a mighty king will, like a runaway slave,
120 flee over the Euphrates’ stream unseen, unknown, who will one day dare the loathsome guilt
121 of matricide, and many other things,
122 having confidence in his most wicked hands.
123 And many for the throne with blood
124 will redden Rome’s soil while he flees over Parthian land.
125 And Rome’s foremost man will come out of Syria, who having burned the temple of Solyma,
126 and having slaughtered many of the Jews,
127 will bring destruction on their great broad land. And then too an earthquake will overthrow
128 both Salamis and Paphos, when dark water
129 dashes over Cyprus washed by many a wave.
130 But when from a deep cleft of Italian land
131 fire comes flashing out in the broad heaven,
132 and many cities burn and destroy men,
133 and much black ash fills the great sky,
134 and small drops like red earth fall from heaven,
135 then know the anger of the God of heaven, because without reason they will destroy
136 the nation of the pious. And then strife
137 of war, awakened, will come to the West, the fugitive of Rome will also come,
138 bearing a great spear, having marched across
139 Euphrates with his many myriads.
140 Wretched Antioch, they will call you no more a city when around their spears
141 because of your own follies you fall. And then on Scyros a pestilence
142 and dreadful battle-din will bring destruction.
143 Alas, alas! wretched Cyprus, a broad wave of the sea will cover you, you
144 tossed on high by the whirling stormy winds.
145 And into Asia great wealth will come, which Rome herself once, plundering, put away
146 in her luxurious homes; and twice as much
147 and more she will give back to Asia,
148 and then there will be an excess of war.
149 And Carian cities by Maeander’s waters,
150 ringed with towers and very beautiful, will be destroyed by a bitter famine,
151 when the Maeander hides his dark water.

Impiety and the Call to Repent

152 But when piety perishes from mankind,
153 and faith and right are hidden in the world,
154 fickle ... and in unholy boldness
155 living, will practice wanton violence, and reckless evil deeds, and of the pious
156 no one will take account, but even them all
157 from thoughtlessness they utterly destroy in childish folly, in their violence
158 taking delight and holding their hands in blood;
159 then know that God is no longer mild,
160 but gnashing with fury and destroying all the race of men by great conflagration.
161 Ah! miserable mortals, change these things,
162 and do not lead the mighty God to extreme anger;
163 but giving up your swords and pointed knives,
164 and homicides and wanton violence,
165 wash your whole body in perennial streams, and lifting up your hands to heaven seek pardon
166 for former deeds and atone with praise for
167 bitter impiety; and God will give
168 repentance; he will not destroy; and anger
169 he will again hold back, if in your hearts
170 you all will practice honored piety. But if, unwilling, you do not obey me,
171 but with a fondness for strange lack of sense
172 receive all these things with an evil ear,

The Final Fire and Resurrection

173 there will be a fire over all the world
174 and a very great omen with sword and with trumpet
175 at sunrise; the whole world will hear the roar and mighty sound. And he will burn all the earth,
176 and destroy the whole race of men, and all
177 the cities and the rivers and the sea;
178 he’ll burn all things, and it will be black dust.
179 But when now all things have been reduced
180 to dust and ashes, and God has calmed the unspeakable fire which he lit,
181 the bones and ashes of men God himself
182 again will fashion, and he will again raise mortals up, even as they were before.
183 And then the judgment will be, at which God
184 himself as judge will judge the world again;
185 and all who sinned with impious hearts, even them, he will again hide under mounds of earth
186 dark Tartarus and Stygian Gehenna.
187 But all who are pious will again live on the earth and will inherit there
188 the great immortal God’s unfading bliss,
189 God giving spirit life and joy to them
190 the pious; and they all will see themselves
191 gazing at the sun’s sweet and cheering light.
192 That man will be happy on the earth.

Book 5: Nero’s Return

1 But come, now, hear from me the mournful time of sons of Latium. And first of all,
2 after the kings of Egypt were destroyed
3 and the like earth had borne them all downwards,
4 and after Pella’s townsman, under whom
5 the whole East and the rich West were cast down, whom Babylon dishonored, and stretched out
6 for Philip a dead body (not of Zeus,
7 of Ammon untrue things were prophesied), and after that one of the race and blood
8 of king Assaracus, who came from Troy,
9 even he who split the violence of fire,
10 and after many lords, and after men dear to Ares, and after the young babies,
11 the children of the beast that feeds on sheep,
12 the very first lord will be one who will sum twice ten with the first letter of his name;
13 he will be very powerful in wars;
14 and he will have the initial sign of ten;
15 and in the same way after him to reign is one who has the alphabet’s first letter;
16 before him Thrace and Sicily will crouch, then Memphis, Memphis cast headlong to earth
17 because of the cowardice of rulers
18 and of an unenslaved woman who falls upon the wave. And he will lay down laws
19 for peoples and put all things under him;
20 but after a long time he will pass on his power to another, who will have
21 three hundred for his first initial sign,
22 and the beloved name of a river, and he will rule the Persians and Babylon;
23 and then he will strike Medians with his spear.
24 Then one will rule who has the initial sign
25 of the number three. And then there will be a lord who will have twice ten for first initial;
26 and he will come to Ocean’s farthest water
27 and by Ausonia split the ebbing tide.
28 And one whose mark is fifty will be lord,
29 a dreadful serpent breathing bitter war,
30 who one day stretching out his hands will make an end of his own race and stir all things,
31 acting the athlete, driving chariots, putting to death and daring countless things;
32 and he will split the mountain of two seas and sprinkle it with gore; but out of sight
33 the destructive man will also vanish; then, making himself equal to God,⁠a
34 he will return; but God will prove him nothing.
35 And after him three kings will be destroyed by one another. Then a great destroyer
36 of pious men will come, whom seven times ten
37 will point out clearly. But from him a son,
38 whom the first letter of three hundred proves,
39 will take the power. And after him there will be
40 a ruler, of the initial sign of four, a life-destroyer. Then a revered man
41 of the number fifty. Next, succeeding him
42 who has the first mark of the initial sign three hundred, a Celtic mountaineer will,
43 into the strife of battle pressing on,
44 not escape a shameful fate, but will be
45 worn out to death; foreign dust, but dust that is named for Nemea’s flower,
46 will hide his corpse. And after him another man will rule, wearing a silver helmet;
47 and he will have the name of a sea;
48 and he will be the best man of all and discreet in all things. And upon you,
49 you best of all, above all, dark-haired one,
50 and all these days will be upon your descendants. After him three will rule; but the third one
51 will hold the royal power late.

Judgment upon Egypt

52 I am worn out, utterly miserable one,
53 sister of Isis, to store up in my heart
54 an evil message, and an inspired song
55 of oracles. First Maenades will dart around your much-lamented temple’s steps,
56 and you will be in evil hands that day when the Nile one day will fill the whole land
57 of Egypt even to sixteen cubits deep;
58 it will wash all the land, and water it for mortals; and the pleasure of the land
59 will be still and the glory of her face.
60 Memphis, you will wail most over Egypt;
61 for, once ruling mightily the land
62 you will become poor, so that out of heaven
63 the Thunderer will himself cry out in a loud voice:
64 “Mighty Memphis, who once boasted
65 greatly over cowardly mortals, you will wail full of pain and utterly unfortunate, so that you
66 will yourself see the eternal God
67 immortal in the clouds. Where among men is now your mighty pride? Because you
68 raved against my God-anointed children,
69 and urged evil forward on good men,
70 you will pay the penalty for such things in a similar way. No more openly
71 there will be justice for you among the blessed;
72 fallen from the stars, you will not rise to heaven.”
73 Now these things to Egypt God had me
74 speak out for the last time, when men will be
75 utterly evil. But they labor hard, evil men awaiting evil things, anger
76 of the immortal Thunderer in heaven,
77 worshiping stones and beasts instead of God, and also fearing many things besides
78 which have no speech, nor mind, nor power to hear;
79 things that it is not right for me to mention,
80 each one an idol, formed by mortal hands;
81 of their own labors and presumptuous thoughts
82 men received gods made of wood and stone
83 and brass, and gold and silver, foolish too,
84 without life and mute, cast in the fire
85 they made them, vainly trusting such things. . . . Thmois and Xois are in great distress,
86 and the hall of Heracles is struck
87 and Zeus and Hermes king. And as for you,
88 Alexandria, famous nourisher
89 of cities, war will not leave, nor plague . . .
90 For your pride you will pay as many things as you did before. You will be silent
91 a long age, and the day of your return . . .
92 Luxurious drink will no longer flow for you . . .
93 For a Persian will come on your valley,
94 and like hail he will destroy all the land,
95 and artful men, with blood and corpses. . . . By sacred altars one of barbarous mind,
96 strong, full of blood and raging senselessly,
97 with countless numbers rushing to destruction. And then you will, in cities very rich,
98 be very weary. Falling on the earth
99 all Asia will wail on account of gifts
100 crowning her head with which you delighted her. But, as he himself obtained
101 the Persian land by lot, he will make war
102 and killing every man destroy all life,
103 so that there will remain for wretched mortals
104 a third part. But with nimble leap he will
105 himself speed from the West, and all the land besiege and waste. But when he possesses
106 the height of power and odious reverence,
107 he will come, wishing to destroy the city
108 even of the blessed. And a certain king
109 sent out from God against him will destroy
110 all mighty kings and bravest men. And thus judgment by the Immortal will come to men.

Judgment upon the Eastern Lands

111 Alas, alas for you, unhappy heart! Why do you move me to declare these things,
112 the painful rule of Egypt over many?
113 Go to the East, to races of the Persians who lack understanding, and show them
114 what is now and what is to be.
115 The river of Euphrates will bring on a deluge, and it will destroy the Persians,
116 Iberians and Babylonians
117 and the Massagetae that relish war and trust in bows. All Asia fire-ablaze
118 will beam brightly to the islands. Pergamos,
119 revered long ago, will perish from its base,
120 and Pitane among men will appear all-desolate. All Lesbos will sink deep
121 into the deep, and so will be destroyed.
122 Smyrna, whirled down her cliffs, will wail aloud, she that was once revered and given a name
123 will perish utterly. Bithynians
124 will, over their own country, then reduced
125 to ashes, wail, and over great Syria, and over Phoenicia that has many tribes.
126 Alas, alas for you, Lycia; how many evils does the sea contrive
127 against you, mounting up of its own will
128 upon the painful land! And it will dash with evil earthquake and with bitter streams
129 on the rough Lycian land that once breathed perfume.
130 And there will be fearful anger for Phrygia because of sorrow for which Rhea came,
131 mother of Zeus, and stayed there long.
132 The sea will overthrow the Centaur race and barbarous nation, and beneath the earth
133 will tear away the Lapithaean land.
134 The river of deep eddies and deep flow,
135 Peneus, will destroy Thessalian land, snatching men from the earth. Eridanus
136 pretending once to bear the forms, of beasts.
137 The poets will weep for Hellas utterly wretched,
138 when one from Italy will strike the neck
139 of the isthmus, mighty king of mighty Rome,
140 a man made equal to God, whom, they say, Zeus himself and the majestic Hera bore
141 he, courting with his all-musical voice
142 applause for his sweet Songs, will put to death with his own wretched mother many men.
143 The fearful lord will flee from Babylon
144 and shameless whom all mortals and best men
145 hate; for he killed many and laid hands upon the womb; against his wives he sinned
146 and of men stained with blood he had been formed.
147 And he will come to monarchs of the Medes and Persians, first whom he loved and to whom
148 he brought renown, while with those wicked men
149 he lurked against a nation not desired
150 and on the temple made by God he seized and citizens and people going in,
151 of whom I justly sang the praise, he burned;
152 for when this man appeared the whole creation was shaken and kings perished—and yet power
153 remained among them, and they completely destroyed
154 the mighty city and the righteous people.
155 But when the fourth year a great star shines, which alone will overpower the whole earth
156 because of honor, which was first assigned
157 to lord Poseidon; then a great star will come
158 from heaven into the dreadful sea and burn
159 the vast deep, and Babylon itself,
160 and the land of Italy, because of which many holy faithful men perished among the Hebrews and a true people.
161 Among evil mortals you will be made
163 to suffer evils, but you will remain
164 all-desolate for whole ages by yourself
165 hating your soil; for you had a desire for sorcery, adulteries were with you
166 and lawless carnal intercourse with boys, you evil city, womanish, unjust,
167 ill-fated above all. Alas, alas!
168 You city of the Latin land, unclean in all things, Maenad having joy in snakes,
169 you will sit as a widow over your banks
170 and the river Tiber will lament for you, you, his wife, who have a blood-stained heart
171 and impious soul. Did you not understand
172 what God can do, and what he devises? But you said, “I’m alone, and me no one
173 will sack.” But now God, who always is, will
174 destroy you and all yours, and in that land
175 your banner will no longer remain, as once, when the mighty God received
176 your honors. Stay, lawless one, alone,
177 and mixed with burning fire inhabit
178 in Hades the Tartarean lawless land.

Egypt, Nero, and the Coming Judgment

179 And now again, Egypt, I mourn for
180 your blind delusion; Memphis, first in toils, you will be filled up with the dead; in you
181 the pyramids will speak a ruthless sound.
182 Python, who were justly called long ago the double city, be silent for ages,
183 so that you may cease from wickedness.
184 Reckless in evils, treasury of toils,
185 much-wailing Maenad, suffering, terrible evils, much-weeping, you will remain a widow
186 through all time. You became full of years while you alone were ruling over the world;
187 but when the white dress Barea around herself
188 puts on over what is defiled, would that I neither were nor had been born
189 Thebes, where is your great strength? A fierce man
190 will kill the people; but you, wretched one, grasping your dark dress will wail alone,
191 and you will make atonement for all things
192 which you formerly with a shameless soul perpetrated. They also will see
193 a mourning on account of lawless deeds.
194 And a mighty man of the Ethiopians
195 will overthrow Syene; by their might dark-skinned Indians will occupy Teucheira.
196 Pentapolis, a man of mighty strength will burn you whole. All-tearful Libya,
197 who will explain your follies? And Cyrene,
198 which mortal will pitiably weep for you? You will not even to the time
199 of your destruction cease your hateful wail.
200 Among the Britons and among the Gauls, rich in gold, Ocean will be roaring loud
201 filled with much blood; for evil things
202 they did to God’s children, when a king
203 of the Sidonians, a Phoenician, led
204 a mighty Gallic host from Syria;
205 and he will slaughter you, yourself, Ravenna, and he will lead the way to slaughter.
206 Indians and great-hearted Ethiops,
207 fear together; for when with these the course of Capricorn and Taurus in the Twins
208 winds around the middle of the heaven,
209 Virgo then rising, and around his front
210 fastening a belt the sun will lead all heaven, there will be moving downwards to the earth
211 a mighty conflagration high in air,
212 and a new nature in the warlike stars, so that the whole land of the Ethiops
213 will perish in the midst of fire and groans.
214 And weep, Corinth, for the sad destruction
215 which is in you; for when with pliant threads the three sister Fates, spinning, will, up high,
216 lead him who flees by guile against the voice
217 of the isthmus, until all look at him
218 who once cut out the rock with ductile brass,
219 he will also destroy and strike your land,
220 as it has been appointed. For to him God gave strength to accomplish what could
221 no earlier of all the kings together.
222 And first with sickle cutting off the roots
223 from three heads he will give food in excess
224 to others, so that unclean kings will eat
225 the flesh of parents. For to all men slaughter and terrors are laid up in store
226 because of the great city and just people
227 saved through all time, whom Providence held high. You unstable one and ill-advised,
228 by evil fates surrounded, for mankind
229 both a beginning and great end of toil—
230 of suffering creation and of part restored again—you insolent leader
231 of evils, and for men a great curse, who
232 of mortals wished for you? Who has not been embittered from within? Cast down in you
233 a king lost his honored life. Wickedly
234 have you disposed all things and washed away
235 all that is fair, and you have changed the world’s fair folds. In strife with us perhaps
236 you have brought forward these unstable things;
237 and how do you say, “I will persuade you,” and “If in anything you blame me, speak?”
238 There was once among men the sun’s bright light
239 the prophets’ common ray being spread abroad;
240 speech dripping honey, fair drink for all men, appeared and grew, and day arose on all.
241 Because of this, you narrow-minded one
242 leader of greatest evils, both a sword
243 and grief will come on that day. For mankind
244 both a beginning and great end of toil—
245 of suffering creation and of part restored again—hear, you curse of men,
246 the bitter, intolerable oracle.
247 But when the Persian land keeps away
248 from war and plague and groaning, on that day
249 a race divine of blessed heavenly Jews
250 will offer prayer, who will live around God’s city in mid portions of the land,
251 and even as far as Joppa building around
252 a great wall they will carry it up
253 to the gloomy clouds. No more will the trumpet
254 sound battle-din nor by an enemy’s mad hands
255 will they be cut off; but they will set up their trophies for an age of evil men.
256 And one will come again from heaven, a man
257 preeminent, who stretched his hands on the fruitful tree, by far the noblest of the Hebrews,
258 who at one time made the sun stand still
259 when he spoke with fair word and holy lips,
260 no longer trouble your soul within your breast because of the sword, rich child of God,
261 flower longed for by him only, fine light
262 and noble branch, a much-loved offshoot, pleasant Judea, beautiful city,
263 inspired by hymns. No more will the unclean foot
264 of Greeks revel around your land,
265 who held within their breast a lawless mind;
266 but you will greatly honor glorious children
267 and be expert in songs and holy tongues,
268 with sacrifices of all kinds and prayers
269 honored by God. All who endure the toils
270 of small affliction and the just will have more that is altogether beautiful;
271 but the wicked, who sent lawless speech to heaven,
272 will stop speaking one against another,
273 and hide themselves until the world is changed.
274 And there will be a rain of gleaming fire
275 from the clouds; and mortals will no longer reap the fair grain from the earth; all things unsown
276 and unplowed, until mortal men know
277 the Lord of all things, the immortal God
278 always existing, and no more revere
279 mortal things, neither dogs nor vultures’ nests,
280 and the things Egypt taught them to glorify with mute mouth and dull lips. But all these things
281 the holy land of the only pious men
282 will bring forth, from the honey-dripping rock a stream and from a spring ambrosial milk
283 will flow for all the just; for in one God,
284 one Father, who alone is glorious,
285 having great piety and faith they hoped. But why does the wise mind grant me these things?

The Nations and the Judgment of Rome

286 And now you, wretched Asia, piteously
287 I mourn and the race of Ionians and Carians and Lydians rich in gold.
288 Alas, alas for you, Sardis; and alas
289 for much-loved Trallis; alas, alas,
290 Laodicea, beautiful city; thus you will be overthrown by earthquakes
291 and ruined, and be also changed to dust.
292 And to Asia gloomy...
293 Artemis’ temple fixed at Ephesus ...
294 By chasms, and earthquakes come headlong down
295 one day into the dreadful sea, as storms overwhelm ships. And upturned Ephesus
296 will wail aloud, lament beside her banks,
297 and search for her temple which is no more. And then, enraged, God the imperishable will,
298 who lives on high, hurl thunderbolts from heaven
299 down on the head of the one who is impure.
300 And in the place of winter there will be on that day summer. And to mortal men
301 there will then be great misery; for the Thunderer
302 will utterly destroy all shameless men and with his thunders and with lightning-flames
303 and blazing thunderbolts men of ill-will,
304 and so he will destroy the impious ones,
305 so that there will remain upon the earth dead bodies more numerous than the sand.
306 For Smyrna also, weeping her Lycurgus,
307 will come to the gates of Ephesus and she herself will perish even more.
308 And foolish Cyme with her inspired streams
309 cast down by hands of godless, unjust men
310 and lawless, will not utter to heaven so much as a word; but she will remain
311 dead in Cymaean streams. And then they will
312 together weep, awaiting evil things.
313 Cyme’s rough populace and shameless tribe,
314 having a sign, will know what they toiled for.
315 And then, when they have mourned their land reduced to ashes, by Eridanus
316 Lesbos will be overthrown forever. Alas, Corcyra, beautiful city,
317 alas for you, cease from your revelry.
318 You also, Hierapolis, sole land mixed with riches, what you have longed to have
319 you will have, even a land of many tears,
320 since you were angry toward a land beside thermodon’s streams. Rock-clinging Tripolis,
321 beside the waters of Maeander, you
322 shall by the nightly surges under shore
323 God’s anger and foresight utterly destroy.
324 Do not take me, willing, to the neighboring land
325 of Phoebus; one day a thunderbolt will destroy dainty Miletus from above,
326 because she seized on Phoebus’ crafty song
327 and the wise care and prudent plan of men. Father of all, be gracious to the land
328 of Judah, well fed, fruit-abounding, great,
329 in order that we may see your judgments.
330 For you, God, in kindness regarded this land first that it might appear to be
331 your gracious gift to all mortal men
332 and to hold fast what God put in their charge.
333 The utterly wretched works of the Thracians
334 I yearn to see, and the wall between two seas
335 trailed in the dust along beneath the mist, even like a river for the swimming fish.
336 Wretched Hellespont, one day a child of the Assyrians will throw a yoke
337 across you; battle of the Thracians comes
338 and will plunder your strength. And there will rule over the land of Macedonia
339 a king of Egypt, and a barbarous region
340 will waste the strength of captains. Lydians, and the Galatians, and Pamphylians
341 with the Pisidians, all equipped for war will bring about evil strife in a mass.
342 Utterly wretched Italy, then you will remain
343 all-desolate, unwept, in blooming land by deadly sting to perish utterly.
344 And one day high in the broad heaven above
345 God’s voice will be heard roaring like thunder.
346 And the unwasting flames of the sun himself
347 will be no more, nor will the brilliant light
348 of the moon again be in the latest time,
349 when God is the ruler. And dark gloom
350 will be over all the earth, and blinded men and evil beasts and misery; that day will be
351 a long time, so that men will see that God
352 himself is Lord, the overseer of all in front of heaven. And then he himself will
353 not pity hostile men, who sacrifice
354 their herds of lambs and sheep and calves and goats
355 and bellowing golden-horned bulls, offering them to lifeless Hermae and to gods of stone.
356 But let the law of wisdom be your guide
357 and the glory of the righteous; for fear that one day
358 the imperishable God, enraged, destroys
359 each race of men and shameless tribe of life,
360 they ought to love faithfully the Father, the wise God who always is.
361 In the last time, at the turning of the moon,
362 there will be raging through the world a war and carried on with cunning, and in guile.
363 And from the limits of the earth will come
364 fleeing and pondering sharp things in his mind,
365 a matricidal man who will overpower every land and rule over all things,
366 and see all things more wisely than all men;
367 he will seize at once the thing for whose sake he himself was killed; and he will destroy
368 many men and great tyrants and will burn
369 all of them, as none other ever did,
370 and he will raise up those who are afraid for emulation’s sake. And from the West
371 much war will come to men, and blood will flow
372 down hill till it becomes deep-eddying streams.
373 And in the plains of Macedonia
374 anger will distill and give help from the West,
375 but to the king destruction. And a wind of winter then will blow upon the earth,
376 and the plain be filled with evil war again.
377 For fire will rain down from the heavenly plains on mortals, and with it blood, water, flash
378 of lightning, murky darkness, night in heaven,
379 and waste in war and over the slaughter mist,
380 and these together will destroy all kings and noblest men. Thus will be made to cease
381 then the pitiable destruction of war.
382 And no longer will anyone fight with swords or iron
383 or even darts, which will not again
384 be lawful. But wise people will have peace,
385 who were left, having experienced wickedness, that they might at the last be filled with joy.
386 You matricides, give up your impudence and evil-working boldness, who long ago
387 provided lawlessly lewd couch with boys,
388 and placed girls who were pure before as prostitutes in brothels by assault and punishment
389 and by much-laboring indecency.
390 For in you a mother with her child held unlawful intercourse, and a daughter was
391 with her own father married as a bride;
392 and in you kings have their ill-fated mouth polluted, and in you have wicked men
393 found couch with cattle. Be silent,
394 you wicked, much-mourned city, full
395 of revelry; for by you young virgins will care no longer for the fire divine
396 of sacred wood that fondly nourishes;
397 before you was a much-loved house long ago
398 extinguished, when I saw the second house
399 cast headlong down and overwhelmed with fire
400 by an unholy hand, house always flourishing, God’s watchful temple, brought forth by his saints
401 and being always indestructible,
402 by the soul hoped for and the body itself. For not without the rites of burial
403 will anyone praise God out of the unseen earth,
404 nor did a wise workman make a stone by them,
405 nor did he fear gold, cheat of the world
406 and of souls, but the mighty Father, God
407 of all things God-inspired, he revered
408 with holy offerings and fair hecatombs.
409 But now an unseen and unholy king
410 with a great multitude and with men renowned rose into power and cast down his dwelling
411 and let it go unbuilt. But he himself when he set foot on the immortal land
412 destroyed the ground. And such a sign no more
413 was performed upon men, so that it appeared that others should destroy the great city.
414 For a man came from the heavenly plains,
415 one blessed, with a scepter in his hand, which God gave him, and he ruled all things well,
416 and to all the good he restored
417 the riches which the earlier men had seized. And with much fire he took many cities
418 from their foundations, and he set on fire
419 the towns of mortals who did evil before,
420 and he made that city, which God loved,
421 more radiant than stars and sun and moon,
422 and he set order, and a holy house
423 incarnate made, pure, very fair, and formed
424 in many stades a great and boundless tower
425 touching the clouds themselves and seen by all, so that all holy and all righteous men
426 might see the glory of the eternal God,
427 a sight that has been longed for. Rising sun
428 and setting day sang the praise of God.
429 For there are then no longer fearful things
430 for wretched mortals, nor adulteries and lawless love of boys, nor homicide
431 nor tumult, but a righteous strife in all. It is the last time of the saints when God
432 accomplishes these things, high Thunderer,

Babylon, Egypt, and the Last Disasters

433 founder of the most magnificent temple. Alas, alas for you, Babylon,
434 famous for golden throne and golden sandal,
435 kingdom of many years and sole ruler of the world, who were great in former times
436 and city of all cities, you no more
437 will lie in golden mountains and by streams of the Euphrates; you will be laid low
438 by rout of earthquake. But the terrible Parthians
439 caused you to suffer all things. Hold fast
440 your unknown speech, impure Chaldean race; do not ask or be concerned how you will lead
441 the Persians or how you will rule the Medes;
442 for on account of your supremacy, which you had, sending hostages to Rome
443 and serving Asia, you who formerly
444 also thought yourself a queen, will come
445 to the judgment of antagonists, because of whom you have suffered harmful things;
446 and you will give instead of crooked words
447 bitter torment to the enemies, and in the last time the sea will be dry
448 and ships no longer sail to Italy,
449 and great Asia then, utterly unfortunate, will
450 be water, and then Crete will be a plain. And Cyprus will endure great misery
451 and Paphos will mourn a dreadful fate, so that even Salamis, great city, will
452 be seen to undergo great misery;
453 and now the dry land will be fruitless sand upon the shore. And many locusts
454 will utterly destroy the Cyprian land.
455 Looking at Tyre, doomed mortals, you will weep. Phoenicia, dreadful anger remains for you,
456 until you fall to a worthless ruin,
457 so that even Sirens truly may lament. In the fifth generation, when the ruin
458 of Egypt has ceased, it will happen
459 that shameless kings will be joined together,
460 and races of Pamphylians will camp in Egypt, and in Macedonia
461 and in Asia and among the Libyans
462 there will be in the dust a world-maddening war exceedingly bloody, which the king of Rome
463 and rulers of the West will bring to an end.
464 When a wintry storm drops down like snow,
465 while the great river and vast lakes are frozen, at once a barbarous race will make their way
466 into the Asian land and will destroy
467 the race of dreadful Thracians, hard to subdue.
468 And then mortals will, feeding lawlessly,
469 devour their parents, worn down by hunger,
470 and will gulp down the entrails. And wild beasts will devour from all houses table-food,
471 and they and birds will devour all mortals.
472 The ocean will be filled with dead bodies
473 from the river and be red with flesh and blood
474 of the foolish ones. Then thus a feebleness
475 will be on earth, so that the number of men may be seen and the measure of the women,
476 and the terrible race will wail for countless things
477 at last when the sun sets to rise no more,
478 but to remain submerged in Ocean’s waves;
479 for it saw the unclean wickedness
480 of many mortals. And a moonless night will be a fame around the mighty heaven,
481 and no small mist will hide the world’s ravines
482 a second time; then afterward God’s light will guide the good men, who sang praise to God.
483 Isis, utterly wretched goddess, you alone
484 will remain on the waters of the Nile,
485 a Maenad out of order on the sands of Acheron, and no longer will remain
486 remembrance of you over all the earth.
487 And also you, Sarapis, who are placed on many glistening stones, a vast ruin
488 you will lie in utterly unhappy Egypt.
489 But those whom love of Egypt led to you
490 will all lament you badly; but those who put imperishable reason in their breast,
491 and who praised God, will know you to be nothing.
492 And one day a linen-vested man, a priest, will say: “Come, let us raise up for God
493 a beautiful true temple; come, let us
494 change the fearful law of our ancestors,
495 because of which they did not understand that they were to gods of stone and clay
496 making processions and religious rites.
497 Let us turn our souls, giving praise to God
498 the imperishable, who himself is Father,
499 the everlasting One, the Lord of all,
500 the true One, the King, life-sustaining Father, the mighty God existing forever.”
501 And then there will be a great pure temple in Egypt, and the people made by God
502 will bring their sacrifices into it.
503 And to them God will give incorruptible life. But when the Ethiopians, forsaking
504 the shameless tribes of the Triballians,
505 cultivate their Egypt, they will then begin their baseness, so that the later things
506 may all occur. For they will overthrow
507 the mighty temple of the Egyptian land;
508 and God will rain down on the earth terrible anger
509 among them, so that all the wicked ones
510 and all without sense perish. And no more will there be any sparing in that land,
511 because they did not keep that which God gave.

War among the Stars

512 I saw the threatening of the shining Sun among the stars, and in the lightning flash
513 the terrible anger of the Moon; the stars labored
514 with battle; and God gave them up to light.
515 For long fire-flames rebelled against the Sun;
516 lucifer treading upon Leo’s back
517 began the fight; and the Moon’s double horn
518 changed its shape; Capricorn struck Taurus’ neck;
519 and Taurus took away from Capricorn
520 returning day. Orion would no more bear his yoke; the lot of Gemini
521 Virgo changed in Aries; no more shone
522 the Pleiads; Draco disavowed his zone;
523 Pisces went down into Leo’s belt.
524 Cancer did not remain, for he feared Orion;
525 scorpio moved backwards down on fierce Leo; and from the Sun’s flame Sirius slipped away;
526 and the strength of the mighty Shining One
527 aquarius kindled. Uranus himself
528 was roused, until he shook the warring ones;
529 and being enraged he hurled them down on earth.
530 Then swiftly struck down upon the baths of Ocean they set all the earth on fire;
531 and the high heaven remained without a star.

Book 6: Hymn to Christ

1 The great Son of the Immortal famous in song I proclaim from the heart, to whom a throne,
2 the Father Most High gave to be held fast
3 before he was brought forth; then he was raised up
4 according to flesh given, washed, at the mouth
5 of the river Jordan, which goes rushing on trailing its gleaming waves, from the fire
6 escaping he will first see God’s sweet Spirit
7 descending with the wings of a white dove.
8 And a pure flower will bloom, and springs will be full.
9 And he will show the ways to men, and show
10 the heavenly paths, and teach all with wise and he will come for judgment and persuade
11 a disobedient people while he boasts
12 praiseworthy descent from a heavenly Father. He will tread the waves, sickness of mankind
13 he will destroy, he will raise up the dead,
14 and he will drive away many sufferings;
15 and from one bag men will get their fill of bread,
16 when the house of David brings forth a child;
17 and in his hand the whole world, earth, heaven, sea.
18 And he will flash upon the earth, as once
19 the two begotten from each other’s ribs
20 saw human form appearing. It will be when earth is glad in the hope of a child.
21 But for you only, Sodomitic land,
22 evil troubles are laid up; for you yourself hostile, did not recognize your God
23 who mocks at mortal schemes; but from a thorn
24 crowned him with a crown, and fearful gall
25 mingled to insolence and spirit. This will bring evil troubles about for you.
26 Oh, the Wood, oh so blessed, upon which
27 God was stretched out; the earth will not have you, but you will look on a heavenly house,
28 when you, God, flash your eye of fire.

Book 7: Oracles of Doom

1 Rhodes, you are unhappy; for first you, I will mourn you; and you will be the first
2 of cities, and first you will be destroyed,
3 empty of men, but of the means of life not wholly destitute. And you will sail,
4 Delos, and be unstable on the water;
5 Cyprus, a wave of your gleaming sea will one day destroy you; you, Sicily,
6 the fire that burns within you will consume.

The Flood

7 Nor heed God’s terrible and foreign water.
8 Noah came, the only fugitive from all men.
9 Earth will float, hills float, and even sky will float,
10 everything will be water and all things will be destroyed by waters. And the winds
11 will stand still and a second age will come.
12 Phrygia, first you will flame from the crest
13 of the water; and first in impiety
14 you will deny God himself, courting favor
15 with false gods, which will utterly destroy you, wretched one, while many years roll by.
16 The unfortunate Ethiopians under pain,
17 suffering pitiful things, will be struck by swords while they crouch on the ground.
18 Rich Egypt always caring for her grain,
19 which Nilus by his seven swimming streams
20 intoxicates, will destroy itself in internal strife; and from there men unexpectedly
21 will drive out Apis, not the god for men.
22 Alas, alas, Laodicea! you never seeing God, will lie, bold one;
23 and a wave of Lycus will dash over you.

The Coming Fire and the Messiah

24 He himself who is born the mighty God,
25 who will work many signs, will hang an axle through heaven in the midst, and place for men
26 a mighty terror to be seen on high,
27 measuring a column with a mighty fire whose drops will kill the races of mankind
28 that have dared to do evil. But a common Lord
29 there will one day be, and then men will
30 win God’s favor, but will not make an end of fruitless sorrows. And through David’s house
31 all things will happen. For God himself
32 gave him the power and put it in his hand;
33 his messengers will sleep under his feet,
34 and some will light fires, and some will make
35 rivers appear, and some will rescue towns, and some will send out winds. But furthermore
36 a hard life will come on many men,
37 entering their souls and changing human hearts. But when a new shoot out of a root
38 puts out eyes, the creation, which to all
39 once gave abundant food ...

Warnings to the Nations

40 And it will be full with the times. But when others rule, a tribe of warlike Persians,
41 bride-chambers will at once be terrible
42 because of lawless deeds. For her own son
43 a mother will have as husband; a son will be
44 the ruin of his mother; and with her father
45 a daughter will lie down and will put to sleep this foreign law. But to them afterwards
46 Roman Ares will flash from many spears;
47 and they will mix much land with human blood. But then a chief of Italy will flee
48 from the force of the spear. But they will leave
49 on the land a lance inscribed with gold,
50 which as the signal ensign of their rule the foremost fighters carry constantly.
51 And it will happen, when evil and doomed
52 ilias will pitifully complete for all a tomb, not marriage, then brides will weep bitterly,
53 because they did not know God, but always gave
54 loud sound with kettle-drums and cymbals.
55 Consult the oracle, Colophon; for a great fearful fire hangs over you.
56 Unhappily married Thessaly, the earth will no longer see you, nor your ashes, and alone
57 escaping from the mainland you will swim;
58 thus, you wretched one, you will be the sad refuse of war, having fallen
59 by swiftly flowing rivers and by swords.
60 And you, wretched Corinth, will receive around yourself stern Ares, unfortunate one,
61 and you will perish one upon another.
62 Tyre, you, unhappy, will be left alone; for, made a widow by the feebleness
63 of pious men, you will be brought to nothing.

The Baptism of Jesus and Instructions for Worship

64 Ah, Coele-Syria, of Phoenician men
65 the last hold, upon whom the salt sea of Berytus disgorging is poured out,
66 wretched one, you did not know your God,
67 who once in the mouth of Jordan washed himself, —And the Spirit spread his wings in flight towards him—
68 who before both the earth and starry heaven
69 was, actual Word, begotten by his Father,
70 and by the Holy Spirit putting on flesh he quickly flew to his Father’s house.
71 And for him three towers did the mighty heaven
72 establish, in which God’s noble guides live,
73 hope, piety, and much-desired reverence,
74 not having joy in gold or in silver,
75 but in the reverential acts of men— both sacrifices and most righteous thoughts.
76 And you will sacrifice to the immortal
77 and mighty, majestic God, not melting grains
78 of frankincense in fire, nor with the sword
79 killing the shaggy-haired lamb, but with all
80 who bear your blood take wild birds, offer prayer, and fixing eyes on heaven send them away;
81 and you will sprinkle water on pure fire having cried: "As the Father fathered
82 you, the Word, Father, I sent forth a bird,
83 swift messenger of words, with holy waters sprinkling your baptism, Word, through which
84 you made yourself manifest in fire."
85 you will not shut your door, when a stranger comes to you in need, to curb
86 his hunger which comes from his poverty,
87 but taking hold of that man sprinkle him
88 with water and pray three times; and to your God
89 cry thus: "I do not long for wealth;
90 a beggar myself, I once publicly received a beggar; Father, you provider, hear."
91 when you have prayed you will give to him; and the man went away afterwards...
92 Do not afflict me, holy fear of God
93 and righteous, pure in birth, unenslaved, attested...
94 You, Father, make my wretched heart
95 stand still; to you I have looked, to you, the pure one, whom hands did not produce.

Further Warnings to the Nations

96 Sardinia, weighty now, you will be changed
97 to ashes. You will no longer be an island, when the tenth time comes. Among the waves
98 sailors will look for you when you are no more,
99 and kingfishers will wail a sad dirge over you.
100 Rugged Mygdonia, beacon of the sea hard to get out of, for ages you will boast
101 and for ages will be completely destroyed
102 with a hot wind, and rave with many sorrows. Celtic land, on mountain range so great,
103 beyond impassable Alp, you deep sand
104 will completely bury; you will give
105 no more tribute, nor grain, nor pasture; and you from peoples always far away
106 will be utterly desolate, and becoming thick
107 with cold ice you will pay for an outrage, which you did not notice, unholy one.
108 Stout-hearted Rome, you to Olympus will
109 flash lightning after Macedonian spears;
110 but God will make you utterly unknown, when you would seem to the eye to remain
111 much more firm. Then I’ll cry such things to you. Perishing you will then cry out and boil
112 in pain; a second time to you, Rome,
113 again a second time I am to speak. And now for you, wretched Syria,
114 I wail bitterly in pitying grief.
115 Ill-advised Thebans, an evil sound is over you while flutes speak out their tones;
116 for you a trumpet will sound an evil sound and you will see the entire land destroyed
117 alas, alas for you, you wretched one;

The Destruction of the World

118 alas, alas you evil-minded sea! You will be wholly eaten up by fire
119 and you will destroy people with your salt water.
120 For there will be such raging fire on earth that flows like water, and it will destroy
121 the whole land. It will set the hills on fire,
122 will burn the rivers, and exhaust the springs.
123 The world will be thrown into disorder while mankind
124 are perishing. And then the wretched ones,
125 burned badly, will look to heaven inlaid not with stars, but with fire. Not quickly
126 will they be made to perish, but dissolved
127 from under flesh, and burning in the spirit for age-long years, they will know that God’s law
128 is always hard to put to the test and not
129 to be deceived; and then earth, seized by force,
130 daring whatever god she admitted
131 to her altars, cheated, turned to smoke
132 through the changed air; and they will undergo
133 much suffering who will prophesy for gain
134 shameful things, nourishing the evil time.
135 And the Hebrews who put on the shaggy skins of sheep will prove false, in which race
136 obtained no portion by inheritance, but talking mere words over sorrows they
137 are misers, who will change their course of life
138 and not mislead the just, who through the heart in full faith win the favor of their God.

The Restoration of the World

139 But in the third lot of revolving years,
140 eighth the first, another world will appear.
141 Night will be all . . . long and without light.
142 And then there will spread around the dreadful stench
143 of brimstone, messenger of homicides,
144 when they are killed by night and hunger.
145 Then God will create a pure mind in men, and will establish the race, as it was
146 before; no one will any longer
147 cut a deep furrow with round plow, nor will two oxen guiding straight, dip the iron down; nor vines
148 will there be, nor ears of grain; but all will eat
149 together dewy manna with white teeth.

The Sibyl’s Confession

150 And then God will also be among them, and he will teach them as he has taught me,
151 the sad one. For how many evil things
152 I once did knowingly, and many things I also did wickedly and carelessly.
153 My beds were countless, but no marriage-bond
154 was cared for; and I, utterly faithless, brought
155 to all a savage oath. I turned away those in need and among the foremost went
156 into a similar valley and did not heed God’s word.
157 Therefore fire consumed me and will gnaw; for I will not live forever, but a time
158 of evil will destroy me, when for me
159 men will by the edge of the sea
160 construct a tomb, and will kill me with stones; for lying with my father a dear son
161 I presented him. Strike me, strike me, all of you;
162 for thus I will live and fix eyes on heaven.

Book 8: Rome and the Coming of Christ

1 God’s declarations of great anger to come in the last age upon the faithless world
2 I make known, prophesying to all men
3 according to their cities. From the time
4 when the great tower fell and the tongues of men
5 were divided into many languages of mortals, first Egypt’s royal power was
6 established, that of Persians and of Medes
7 and also of the Ethiopians
8 and of Assyria and Babylon,
9 then the great pride of boasting Macedon,
10 then, fifth, the famous lawless kingdom last of the Italians will show many evils
11 to all mortals and will spend the toils
12 of men of every land. And it will lead the untamed kings of nations to the West,
13 make laws for peoples and subject all things.
14 The mills of God grind the fine flour late.
15 Fire will then destroy all things and give back to fine dust the heads of the high-leafed hills

The Condemnation of Greed

16 and of all flesh. First cause of ills to all
17 are greed and a lack of sense.
18 For there will be love of deceitful gold
19 and silver; for mortals chose over these
20 nothing greater, neither light of sun nor heaven, nor sea, nor broad earth from which all things grow,
21 nor God who gives all things, of all things
22 the Father, nor faith and piety
23 they chose before them. Of impiety
24 a source, and a guide on to disorder,
25 an instrument of wars and enemy of peace is lack of sense, that sets at odds
26 parents and children. And along with gold
27 marriage will not be honorable at all.
28 And the land will have its borders and each sea
29 its watchers craftily distributed
30 to all those that have gold; for ages thus those who intend to possess the land
31 that feeds many will plunder laboring men,
32 in order that, gaining larger space, they may enslave them by a false pretense.
33 And if the huge earth from the starry heaven
34 did not hold her throne far off there would not have been
35 for men an equal light, but, bought with gold, it would have belonged to rich men and God must
36 for poor men have prepared another world.

The Oracle against Rome

37 There will come to you one day from above a deserved heavenly stroke, haughty Rome.
38 And you will be the first to bend your neck
39 and be razed to the ground, and you shall fire
40 destructive utterly consume, cast down upon your pavements, and your wealth will perish,
41 and wolves and foxes live in your foundations.
42 And then you will be wholly desolate,
43 as if not born. Where is your Palladium then?
44 What god will save you, whether made of gold
45 or stone or brass? Or then where are your decrees of the senate? Where is the race of Rhea,
46 of Cronus, or of Zeus, and of all those
47 whom you worshipped, demons without life, images of the worn-out dead, whose tombs
48 doomed Crete will hold as a cause of pride,
49 and honor the unconscious dead with thrones?

Hadrian and the Expected Return of Nero

50 But when you have had pleasure-loving kings three times five, enslaving the world from the east
51 to the west, there will then be a lord
52 gray-headed, having the name of the nearby sea,
53 inspecting the world with a nimble foot,
54 bringing gifts, having a large amount of gold
55 and plundering hateful silver even more, and stripping it off he will pick it up.
56 And he will have a part in all mysteries
57 of Magian shrines, display his child as god, abolish all things sacred, and disclose
58 the ancient mysteries of deceit to all.
59 It will be a sad time when he himself, sad one,
60 perishes. And yet the people will say: “Your mighty strength, city, will fall down,”
61 at once seeing that the evil day
62 is coming on. And, foreseeing your most pitiful fate, fathers and young children then
63 will mourn together; they alas, alas! will wail
64 beside the Tiber’s lamentable banks.
65 After him at the latest day of all
66 three will rule, filling out a name of God
67 the heavenly, whose power is both now
68 and to all ages. One of them being old
69 will long wield the scepter, most pitiful king,
70 who in his houses will shut up and guard all the goods of the world, in order that,
71 when from the utmost limits of the earth that man, the matricidal fugitive,
72 comes again, he may give these things to all and furnish Asia with great wealth.

The Troubles of Rome

73 And then you will mourn and put aside the luster of the broad-striped purple robe
74 of your commanders and wear mourning dress,
75 haughty queen, offspring of Latin Rome; the glory of that arrogance of yours
76 will be yours no longer, and you will not,
77 ill-fated, ever be raised up again, but will lie prostrate. For the glory also
78 of eagle-bearing legions will fall low.
79 Where is your power then? What allied land will be
80 subjected by your follies lawlessly? For then in all the earth there will be confusion
81 of mortals, when the Almighty will himself
82 come to the tribunal to judge the souls
83 of the living and the dead and all the world.
84 And parents will not be dear to children
85 nor children to their parents, on account of their impiety and their distress
86 unexpected. From then on gnashing will be yours
87 and scattering and conquest, and when the fall of cities comes and yawnings of the earth.
88 When a dragon charged with fire in both his eyes
89 and with full belly will come on the waves
90 and will afflict your children, and there is famine and war of kinsmen, near at hand
91 is the end of the world and the last day and judgment of the immortal God for them
92 that are approved and chosen. And there will
93 against the Romans first of all be anger implacable, and there will come a time
94 of drinking blood and wretched course of life.
95 Alas, alas for you, you reckless land, great barbarous nation; you did not realize
96 from where you came naked and unworthy
97 to the sun’s light, that to that place again
98 you might withdraw naked and afterwards
99 come to judgment, as unjustly judging. . . .
100 With gigantic hands coming from on high alone through all the world you will remain
101 under the earth. By naphtha and asphalt
102 and sulfur and much fire you utterly
103 will disappear and will be burning dust
104 for ages; and each one who sees will hear
105 from Hades a great mournful bellowing and gnashing of teeth, and you noisily
106 beating with your own hands your godless breast.
107 For all together there is equal night; for rich and poor; and naked from the earth
108 naked again to earth they hurry away
109 and cease from life when they complete their time.
110 No slave is there, nor any lord, nor tyrant, nor king, nor leader having much conceit,
111 nor speaker learned in law, nor magistrate
112 judging for money; nor do they pour out the blood of sacrifices in libations
113 upon the altars; no drum sounds there
114 nor cymbal...
115 Nor perforated flute that has a power to madden mind itself, nor sound of pipe
116 that bears the likeness of a crooked snake,
117 nor trumpet, harsh-toned messenger of wars; nor those made drunk in the lawless feasts
118 of revelry, nor in the choral dance;
119 nor sound of harp, nor harmful instrument;
120 nor strife, nor anger of many kinds, nor sword is with the dead; but an eternity
121 common to all is keeper of the key
122 of the great prison before God’s judgment-seat
123 with images of gold and silver and stone
124 you are ready, so that to the bitter day
125 you may come to see your first punishment, Rome, and gnashing of teeth. And no more
126 Syrian or Greek will lay down his neck
127 beneath your servile yoke, nor foreigner, nor other nation. You will be plundered
128 and made to suffer what you exacted,
129 and in fear wailing you will give, until
130 you pay back all things; and you for the world will be a triumph and reproach of all.
131 Then the sixth race of the Latin kings will
132 end life at last and leave scepters behind
133 from the same race another king will reign,
134 who will rule every land and wield scepters;
135 and having full power, and by the decrees of God most mighty, his children will rule,
136 and his race is of unshaken children;
137 for thus it is decreed while time moves round,
138 when Egypt will have three times five kings.

Further Oracles about Nero

139 Afterwards when the limit of the time
140 of the Phenix comes round, there will come a race of peoples to plunder, tribes confused,
141 enemy of the Hebrews. Then Ares will
142 go plundering Ares; and he will himself destroy the haughty threatening of the Romans.
143 For Rome’s power perished then while in its bloom;
144 an ancient queen with cities living around,
145 the land of fertile Rome will no longer prevail, when out of Asia one comes
146 to rule with Ares. And when he has done
147 all these things, to the city afterwards
148 he will come. And three times three hundred
149 and forty-eight you will complete,
150 when, taking you by force, an evil fate will come upon you and complete your name.
151 Ah, utterly wretched as I am, will I see
152 someday that day destructive to you, Rome, but to all Latins most? It honors him
153 with counsels who goes, up on Trojan chariot
154 with hidden children from the Asian land,
155 having a fiery soul. But when he cuts through the isthmus looking wistfully,
156 moving against all, passing over the sea,
157 then dark blood will pursue the mighty beast. And a dog chased the lion which destroys
158 the shepherds. And then they will take away
159 his scepter and to Hades he will pass.
160 And an evil will come to Rhodes, last, but greatest. There will also be for Thebes
161 an evil conquest afterwards, and Egypt
162 will perish by the wickedness of rulers, and he who, being mortal, even so
163 escaped headlong destruction afterwards,
164 was a man blessed three and four times over.
165 And Rome will be a room, and Delos dull, and Samos sand. . . .
166 Later again, after that, there will come
167 an evil to the Persians for their pride,
168 and all their insolence will come to nothing.