Demonstration 16: On the Peoples, who have replaced the People

Demonstration concerning the Peoples who have replaced the People For the Peoples, indeed, who from all the tongues were earlier called to the inheritance of the Most High before Israel, as God said to Abraham: "I have given you to be a father to the multitude of Peoples." And Moses proclaimed and said: "The Peoples shall draw near to the mountain, and there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness." And in the glory of testimony he said to the People: "I have led you among a people that is not a people, and among a foolish people you have provoked me." And Jacob our father testified concerning the Peoples, when he blessed Judah and said to him: "A tribe shall not be cut off from Judah, nor a sandal from his feet, until he comes to whom the kingdom belongs, and to him the Peoples shall look." And Isaiah said: "The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established at the head of the mountains, and shall be raised above the heights, and all the Peoples shall bow down to him. And many Peoples shall come from afar, and they shall say: 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and let us learn from his ways, and walk in his paths.' For from Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And the house of the Peoples shall be judged, and all the distant Peoples shall be covered. And when he has judged them and covered them, then they shall receive instruction, and they shall be humbled and subdued from their hardness. And they shall turn their swords into pruning hooks, and their spears into sickles. And again the People shall not take up the sword against the People. And again they shall not learn war. For formerly the Peoples who did not know God were contending over plunder and over booty with swords and with spears and with bows. And when the Saviour Messiah came, he broke the bow of war, and spoke peace with the Peoples. And he made their swords into pruning hooks, and their spears they made into sickles, that they might eat the labour of their hands and not from plunder. And again it is written: "A chosen language was turned upon the Peoples.

iven all of them in the name of the Lord. For from the beginning, indeed, the peoples of the chosen tongues did not exist, and they were not called by the name of the Lord, because in their tongues they were praising the idols which the hands of their own making had fashioned, and they were called by the names of their gods, and not by the name of the Lord. And again, the prophet Zechariah also said that many and mighty peoples would be subject to the Lord. And the prophet Jeremiah openly and plainly proclaimed concerning the peoples, when he said: "The peoples have abandoned their engraved images, and have cried out, and have proclaimed, and have said that the idols of falsehood which their fathers bequeathed to them are nothing." And to his people Jeremiah proclaimed and said to them: "Arise, go to the roads, and inquire about the paths of the world, and see which road is good; go on it." And they, in their stubbornness, turned and said to him: "We will not go, we have sinned." And again he said to them: "I have set over you watchers that you might hear the sound of the trumpet." And they said to him again: "We will not hear." And this they did plainly and openly in the days of Jeremiah, when he proclaimed to them the word of the Lord. And they turned and said to him: "The word which you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hear from you; but we will do as we please." And every word that came from his mouth was to offer incense to other gods. And when he saw that they did not listen to him, he turned away from them to the peoples and said to them: "Hear, O peoples, and know the church that is among you, and let the earth hear with its fullness." And when he saw that they stood against him arrogantly and answered him insolently, then he left them as if he were rejected and said: "I have left my house, I have left my inheritance; I have given my beloved self into the hands of his enemies, and in his place a bird of prey has become my inheritance." That is the church which is from the peoples, from all tongues, hidden. And that you may know that he truly left them, Isaiah again said concerning them: "I have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob.

and called them Sodomites and the people of Gomorrah, and brought in other peoples in their place. And when the house of Jacob was cut off, Isaiah said, and called the peoples by the name of the house of Jacob, and said to them, the house of Jacob, go in the glory of the Lord, because the people of the house of Jacob were left behind. And the rulers of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah became theirs, and their fathers were Amorites, and their mothers were Hittites, and they turned and became for them vines and vineyards, whose grapes were bitter grapes, and whose clusters were gall for them, rebellious branches and despicable silver, the vine of Sodom and the planting of Gomorrah, the vineyard of Hiyya which produced carobs instead of grapes, and the vine whose branches consumed the mountain, and nothing was lost or spoiled, and it was not needed for darkness. For Jacob called two: one who went in the glory of the Lord, and one who was left behind. In place of Jacob, they were covered by the rulers of Sodom, and by the name of Jacob the people were called who were with the peoples. And again the prophet said concerning the peoples who were offering sacrifices in place of the people. For he said, my name is great among the peoples, and in every place they offer pure sacrifices in my name. And concerning Israel the prophet said, I did not delight in your sacrifices. And again he said, your offerings did not please me. And again Hosea said concerning Israel, in deceit they sought the Lord. And Isaiah said, their heart is far from their God. For he said, this people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And Hosea said, Ephraim surrounded me with deceit, and the house of Israel and Judah with falsehood, until the people of God came down. And which people? But the righteous and faithful people. For if he said concerning Israel, he surrounded me with deceit and falsehood, and concerning Ephraim, that this sinful kingdom arose from Ephraim in Israel. For if the name of Judah was not mentioned in that passage.

and they were a holy and faithful people who descended and attached themselves to the Lord. But the prophet openly and plainly proclaimed that he would cast out Ephraim and Israel in the captivity. For he openly declared that Jeroboam son of Nebat would sin immediately, and Judah with deceit, because with deceit and stealth they worshipped idols. When he showed their error again to Ezekiel, and concerning them Hosea proclaimed when they sinned with a harlot and a prostitute. For he said concerning the error of Israel that her shame would pass from her face, and concerning the error of the house of Judah he said that her disgrace would pass from between her breasts, and that you should know that concerning both their errors the prophet spoke. And they sinned with a harlot and a prostitute. For he said after the word: that her shame would not pass from her face, and her disgrace from between her breasts; he stripped her naked and left her like the day she was born, and like the day she came up from the land of Egypt. And both their errors: one of Israel and one of Judah; of Israel a harlot, and of Judah a prostitute. And the people who from among the peoples, a holy and faithful people who descended and attached themselves to the Lord. And why did he say that they descended, except because they descended from their high place? For again Ezekiel rebuked them with Oholah and Oholibah, and called both their errors two branches of a vine that ate a fire. David again proclaimed and said concerning the peoples: the Lord will write the peoples in a book, and concerning the children of Israel he was grieved and said: that they would be blotted out from the book of the living, and with your righteous they would not be written. For I know, my beloved, that the children of Israel were written in the book of the Holy One, as Moses said before his God: either forgive the folly of this people, or blot me out from the book you have written. And he said: whoever has sinned against me, blot him out from my book. And when they sinned, David said concerning them.

they will not be counted with your book of the living, nor will they be inscribed with your righteous. And concerning the peoples, he said: The Lord calls the peoples in scripture, because the peoples were not inscribed in the book and in scripture. And see, my beloved, that the calling of the peoples was inscribed before the calling of the people. For they were offering sacrifices in the wilderness. For he said to Moses: Let me go, and I will give this people to you, and I will make you a people greater and better than them. And because the time of the peoples had not come, and their deliverer was delayed, Moses was not pleased to be a deliverer and teacher for the people, who were from the peoples greater and better than the people of Israel. For this great and excellent glory was fitting for the son of God to bear, as Isaiah said: This is too small for me to be a servant, and to restore the greatness of Jacob, and to set up the tribe of Israel. But I gave you a light to the peoples, to show my salvation to the ends of the earth. And again Isaiah proclaimed concerning the peoples: Hear me, O peoples, and listen, O nations, because the law went forth from before me, and this is a light to the peoples. And David said: Let the distant and the near hear the word. And these distant and near ones were hindered and turned aside from their paths. For the peoples heard and were turned aside from the paths of the worship of images and idols. And if you say that he did not call the distant and the near, these were not called distant, but rather near and heirs, as Isaiah said: I raised and exalted the near ones, and they entered into me. And the prophet said: From Egypt I called my son, and to Moses the Holy One said, who said to Pharaoh: Send my son, and he will serve me. And again he said: My son, my firstborn, Israel. But the peoples were those who heard God, and were hindered and turned aside from the paths of their sins.

And again Isaiah said: The peoples who do not know you, and the peoples who do not know your sign, will come to you and be converted. And again Isaiah said: Hear, O peoples, what I have done, and let the distant ones know my might. And concerning the church and the gathering of the peoples, David said: Remember your church which you established from the beginning. And again David said: All my peoples praised the Lord, and the nations praised his name. And again he said: The kingdom is the Lord's, and he ruled over the peoples. And again the prophet said: In the last days, I will send my spirit over all flesh, and they will be converted, and no man will go outside his city, nor to his brother, and he says: Know the Lord, because all of them knew me, from their young to their old. And concerning the children of Israel, he said: He sent a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but to hear the word of the Lord, and they came from the west to the east, and from the south to the north, to seek the word of the Lord, and they did not find it, because it had departed from them. Moses wrote about them beforehand: When your land is afflicted with many evils at the end of days, you will say, Because there is no god in my midst, these evils have befallen me, as they said in the days of Hezekiah, that the Lord abandoned the land, and again the Lord did not see it. And Isaiah said about them: Your sins separated you from your God, and your transgressions exhausted the good things from you. And again he said: You call out with a loud voice in my ears, and I will not hear you. And concerning the people who are among the peoples, David said: All you peoples, gather stones, and praise God with a voice of praise. And again he said: All you peoples heard this, and all the inhabitants of the earth listened. And from the beginning, everything that was pleasing to God from the peoples was more justified than from Israel; the priest from the peoples, he and his seed, were blessed, and his dwelling was enriched.

And he placed it in the cleft of the rock. And the proselytes from the unclean peoples gave the right hand of Jesus. And they entered and took refuge in the inheritance of the Lord. And they became cutters of wood and drawers of water for the service and the altar of the Lord. And when Saul sought to kill them, the heavens were withheld from rain until they were entangled in the sons of Saul. Then the Lord appeared on the earth and blessed his inheritance. And the threshing floor that received the spies became the same, and the house of his father received the inheritance in Israel. And Edom passed over from Gath of the Philistines; into his house entered the tomb of the Lord. And it was honored with him more than all Israel. And he and his house were blessed by the Lord. And the Gittite came and trusted in David at the time of his persecutors. And his name and his seed were honored. And Ebedmelech the Cushite, by a faithful deed, brought Jeremiah up from the pit, when the sons of Israel abandoned him, his people. This is what Moses said concerning them: that the proselyte who is in you will be above, and you will be below. They abandoned and lowered Jeremiah the prophet into the lower pit. And Ebedmelech the proselyte from Cush brought Jeremiah up from the pit. And Ruth the Moabite from a provoking people entered and was mingled with the people of Israel. And from her seed arose the leadership of kings, from whom the Savior was born among the peoples. And Uriah the Hittite from the great unclean people was among the warriors of David. And he went up to be killed by David through deceit in the battle of the sons of Ammon. And he took his wife and married her. David received a decree of judgment that the sword would never cease from his house forever. And again Isaiah said concerning the Savior: I gave you a covenant for the people and a sign for the peoples. How then was there a covenant for the people? Except that from the time the sign and the Savior of the peoples came, from that time Israel ceased from the worship of idols. And a true covenant was for them. Concerning this Moses said:

that you erred with a people that is not a people, and with a foolish people you angered them. You erred, and because of you the idols are not worshipped, so that you would not be ashamed before the fire, which left the idols and called the deception of the exile something that your fathers left for you. And they were angered, and their heart was broken, that you entered and became heirs in their place. For that was the covenant that was for them, that they would not worship other gods. Also, they did not receive you in the fire, and there was no light and life for you, as he proclaimed and said, while teaching that his light is the light of the world. And again he said, "Believe while you have light, before darkness overtakes you." And again he said, "Walk in the light of the lights, and you will be called." And again he said about him, that light shines in darkness. That is the covenant that was for the world, and the light that shone for all the peoples. And he girded and restrained the fire from the twisted paths, as it is written that at his coming the rough became smooth, and the difficult place became a plain, and the glory of the Lord was revealed, and all flesh saw the life of God. This brief reminder I have written to you about the peoples, of whom the Jews boast and say that they are the people of God and the sons of Abraham. But also, they should listen to John, who said to them, when they were boasting that they are the sons of Abraham, then John said to them, "Do not be arrogant and say that you have Abraham as a father," because from stones God can raise up sons for Abraham. And the Savior said to them, that you are the sons of Cain, and not the sons of Abraham. And the apostle said that the branches of the thorn bush were cut off for them, and they were grafted in their places, and they became partners in the name of the olive. Therefore, do not boast and sin, lest you also be cut off, for behold, they are being grafted, they are being grafted into the olive. This is the conclusion against the Jews.

On the one who boasts: You erred, O children of Abraham, and you erred with the people of God. Completed is the demonstration on the people and the peoples.