The Three Days in the Temple
Conversations of the twelve year old Jesus
- Chapter 28 -
The evidence of the Boy Jesus that the temple and the whole country are beyond being cleansed and rescued. The new Ark of the Covenant and the "cursed water"
JORAM said: "I should not like as yet to consider that a settled matter. For with time comes counsel, and Solomon is right in affirming that all in the world is vanity: it might however happen sometimes that your present prophecy also could pass into the arms of vanity, and that we might still follow out, your counsel which is in the highest degree to be taken to heart. For behold, several of us truly agree very much with you! Of course we form only the smallest part of those who dwell in the temple precincts, but we are anyhow the high ones, and thus also unquestionably authoritative! What do you think about this?"
2
I said: "At times it has already been like that in this house, sometimes even much better, and yet the better part never prevailed, but always the big crowd who understood how to make the greatest noise. But I tell you, and each one who thinks like you, and also acts accordingly - in spite of the more than numerous wicked ones - the single just one shall not pass by unnoticed before the Face of God!"
3
The generality of you have of course made a new Ark of the Covenant yourselves, and have procured a new vessel in which to keep the 'Cursed Water' which is advised by no prophet, and which is one of the worst inventions and products of the later times! Truly, that was unnecessary, equally the Ark of the Covenant as also the vessel! Why have you not rather renewed your hearth in God through a right repentance, and transformed your old worldly mind into that of pure love and compassion?
4
Truly I say unto you: The old Ark of the Covenant, full of the Spirit of God stands now before you, in Me, and tells you openly to your faces that within your new Ark of the Covenant, there is not so much as a tiny mote out of a sunbeam of any spirit of God, but surely a superabundance of the old, most wicked spirit of lust which emanates from your hearts! And the 'Cursed Water' are the wretched tears shed over so many worldly losses from which you had expected the greatest gains; and those who betrayed you to the Romans, if once you could get them into your clutches have, for the greater part, most miserably died of that cursed water!
5
But from now onwards the thousand times cursed water will no longer avail you anything! It was of course once decided that those who betrayed the temple in divine matters, to the enemies of Jehovah, would have to drink the water - the ill famed water of the Dead Sea as if they were Philistines, and very bad and benighted heathens of ancient times, and if the water did them no harm, then they should be considered as innocent, whereas if their bodies swelled up, they being culprits would be left to their fate, and perish of the consequences and effects of the dead water. But how long is it that this regulation had been altered into something different?
6
How many thousands have already perished of the consequences of your newer poisoned water, without ever having committed the very least betrayal of the purely divine, of the temple, to any wicked heathen whatsoever! Why did you not yourselves take the deadly waters as even you, your very selves, have already many times secretly opened the Holy of Holies to the view of the heathen - but of course for much gold?
7
See, this and still many other things take place here in the temple; yea, this which should be the House of God upon earth, had become a true den of thieves and murderers; there is no atrocity which had not been committed many times in this temple! Do you indeed think that such a place would still be good enough to observe as a habitation for the Lord God? Truly one should never take the field with the sword on which is still the blood of one's brother; for there is already an old curse attached to it, and with it no victory would ever be gained.
8
Yes, you might still purify your hearts, if you very earnestly wanted to, but never these walls! You have even a law according to which a whole country, a house, a field, a domestic animal, and a human being can become impure for ever, through a gross sin against the Spirit of God, why then not this temple, in which at different times the greatest atrocities, crying aloud to heaven, have been committed?
9
But I tell you: Not only this temple, but the whole country had long been defield above all measure, past recovery and past cleansing, and shall therefore in the near future, be trodden down by the heathen, and shall become a habitation for robbers and ravenous animals!
10
Therewith I have now, without any concealment, laid My opinion openly before you, and you can now make of it what you like! For I shall soon leave you, and what I have spoken I have spoken only before you and before no one else, although I have known all the time how it is with you, and I shall not continue to speak to any one further as that would be fruitless! But you might, if you wanted to, still change matters; however these walls would not be fit for anything any longer! Do you understand that?"