The Three Days in the Temple
Conversations of the twelve year old Jesus
- Chapter 26 -
The angry answer of the chief priest. The prophecy of the Boy Jesus about the calling of the heathen to be the children of God in place of the Jews, and about the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem. The truth about the death of Zachariah. The measure of the Jews is full.
AT this speech of Mine, the chief priest grew quite angry and said: "Boy, who gave you the right to menace us and the temple? Did we make the laws, according to which we have to act now? Wise as some of your former speeches were. So are these unwise! Do you not know that not a tree falls at one blow, and that it is vain to change a thing that cannot possibly be changed! Just change the people yourself if you can! The Jewish nation is already a very old tree, and can no longer be bent like a young sapling!
2
We certainly have no wish at all to doubt that you have a higher vocation from God: but for all that, you must not tread under your feet the old institutions originating from Moses - even perhaps also with many later additions required by the circumstances of the times - neither should you compare us, being their administrators, to ravening wolves in sheep's clothing. For we have torn no one yet, but if we have chastised any blasphemer of God and the temple, and the adulterers, we did nothing else but what was commanded by Moses. Can you say there that we acted wrongly, and against the Laws of God?
3
If you speak with us, measure your words a little better, for if you find some fault with us and with the temple. Tell it to us with childlike, kind words, and we shall see what can be done about it. But with these threats of divine wisdom you will accomplish nothing with us!
4
I said: With your kind, no one yet has ever accomplished anything, neither with gentle nor with sharp words: therefore you also shall remain as you are, until the end of the world! But for this reason, Grace shall be taken away from you and shall be given to the heathen!
5
Look beyond the great sea at the continent of Europe! It is inhabited by nothing but heathens. Only very rarely does a Jew go there: Thither shall the Grace from Heaven be transplanted!
6
In some seventy years, they shall look for Jerusalem and for the temple, and shall find no more the place where the city and the temple had been standing! And they will then say: 'O what does it matter about the old place where the temple stood? Let us take the next best place and let us build for ourselves a temple of Solomon upon it, and fit it up as it was furnished formerly!
7
Yes, thus will they speak and also act! But as soon as they shall begin to work at the temple, a powerful fire shall come forth from the earth, and the workmen and material will meet with a hard fate.
8
Soon after several of these unsuccessful attempts, tribes of heathens from the East and the South will penetrate into this country, and devastate it, and you will be scattered over the whole earth, and will be persecuted from one end of the world to the other!
9
Thus shall it be done unto you, because you arbitrarily departed from the ancient doctrines of God, and have in their place established your own very worldly human ones, and have fattened yourselves on the great gains which the manipulation of your human doctrines have produced.
10
Read for yourselves the chronicle of the temple, and the things that took place there in secret, and you will find, from the times of the prophets, things, which the hair of every man who has but a small sense of human justice, must stand on end.
11
So far each priest and prophet has been stoned who seriously undertook to cast out the abominable doctrines of man from the House of Jehovah, and to reintroduce those that are purely divine!
12
How long indeed is it since the High priest, when he was offering a pure sacrifice in the temple, was, I declare unto you, throttled by your very own hands!
13
The people that highly esteemed and loved Zachariah, loudly demanded news from you as to what had happened to the man of God, when a new High priest was called to replace him.
14
Then you lied to the people in a most supremely audacious manner, and said with a feigned appearance of veneration, that Zachariah had been praying in the Holy of Holies for the whole people, and an Angel of the Lord whose face shone more than the midday sun had again appeared to him.
15
And the Angel had said unto the astounded man of God: 'O faithful servant of the Lord, you have completed your earthly task, and you have been found just before God, therefore as you are with body and soul, like Epoch and Elijah, you shall now leave this earth and follow me to the Throne of the Almighty God in Heaven, where a great reward is awaiting you!
16
Thereupon Zachariah was said to have looked towards heaven with eyes that were already quite divinely transfigured, and instantaneously to have disappeared from the temple and from this earth, in the arms of the Angel!
17
Moreover you then placed a white stone on the invented spot with the inscription: 'The transfiguration of Zachariah, a man of God' and with that you have again whitewashed yourselves before the people; and then with the people, you honored the man of God with all kinds of psalms, whereas you being his worst enemies had attacked him, and like thieves and murderers had throttled him between the great Altar of Sacrifice and the Holy of Holies, whilst he was praying there upon his knees!
18
But as this happened to Zachariah, so this has happened to many a prophet and true High priest of the Order of Aaron! But afterwards, for the people's sake, you at once erected to them sublime monuments, and have paid them all veneration up to this hour!
19
Tell Me if it is otherwise! You keep silent, and are now quite dumb with fear because I have disclosed this to your face! You think yourselves of course safe from the arms of worldly justice, through your position. Yes, Yes! Unluckily it cannot reach you as there is no other witness against you except Myself. But I do not need the arm of the world's justice, neither will I Myself lay any hand upon you, or chastise you: but if you continue in your perversity, then will that happen to you which I have just announced! I have spoken, now do you speak!"
20
Here the judge looked very angry and said to Me: If you wish it, I will make very short work of these monstrous servants of God, for your witness suffices me entirely!"
21
I said: "Let that be! For behold, I should have more than enough power in My Will and could annihilate them in the shortest possible time! But neither you nor the people, nor I Myself would have won anything by that means! It is sufficient now that we have cast a little light on their dark night; if the day were to begin suddenly, it would render them first of all blind, and with them the whole of the Jewish people. That would happen now, if you were to call them to a sharp account because of their more than numerous and most gross sins. They will entangle themselves in the nets they have laid, and therein will they perish!
22
But everywhere on earth, bounds have been set for man, be it for good or for evil; but, in like manner also bounds have been set to each institution, and also every nation. When it shall be full of the divine goodness, then the people and its land shall begin to overflow with blessing: if however a nation and its land become full of wickedness, then without any pity, a strict sentence shall be passed upon it. The nation had played out its evil role, and the country shall be changed into a desert, as will be the case with this country in a time not very far off!
23
Whosoever can and will grasp this, let him do so! The time is now at hand in which from the roofs, that spirit shall be proclaimed to the wicked of which they are the children, and their deeds shall be read form their foreheads! For from the same school where I have drawn what I know, all the numerous future disciples of My love shall also draw, and they too shall know what I know, and do what I do! But that time is not yet fully at hand. When however it shall have come, you will hear about it, and act accordingly!
24
I have now spoken! Whoever has still anything to say, let him speak, for I shall only stay among you for a very short space of time, as those who fear that they have lost Me will soon reach Jerusalem and find me here."