On Supplication

Of Supplication and Fasting Homily Six Homily Seven Of Supplication and Fasting A cry (that is, of bread) The physician who heals the pain of our race with the medicine of his mercies: look upon our sins as though you were about to perform a cure for us. The good one who hates the evil of our inclination, though he has not been entreated by it: accomplish the desire of your sweetness in the release of my life. The king who saves us from the servitude of evil and death: deliver our assembly from the snares of the debt of his sins. The son of God who brought our captivity out from the captor: liberate my life so that it may no longer fall into the servitude of evil. The well of death, from which our race was sick from the beginning: one of us died, and his breaking of us led to the well of death. The power that restrains the evil one and death through the son of our race: give us power to be empowered in the struggle of labors. In the struggle of labors, the pains of the body are cast upon us at all times, and there is no cessation of the goad of our passions. The desire of bitter pains drives from us and disturbs the tranquility of our life with its agitation. Like a disturbed wind, the commotions that stir within us and confuse our self, as the wind disturbs the sea. To the sea it is like, when it is stirred up by its blowing, and it gives voice to its passions like a wind. In the manner of waves, its thoughts run in the midst of the body, and from it the body and the soul tremble, so that they may not be submerged.

the sea of the waves of the body that has settled in our body, and like a whirlwind it stirs the ship of our corporeality. In its stormy sea, the helmsman of the ship of our mortality steers, and shakes the helm with his strong winds. From his medicines, he cuts down the race full of sicknesses, and asks for the garment of mercy that fills the void of sin and compassion. Sin and compassion, every mortal nature asks, that the blood be healed from the sicknesses that have afflicted him. I saw his medicines that he applied abundantly, and I mounted words of a yoke with him to the high place of peace. To the high place of peace, the forgiveness of sins, the desire of the flesh, may your sin be a tombstone for the rebellion of his life. May the drops of your mercy be a yoke for his heaviness, and their lack not be imprinted in the pains of his soul. In your great name, bind his life like a ship, and in you, hide from the disturbances of troubled pains. Troubled pains disturb his mortality at all times, and turn him away from the rebellion of the promise of your name. In your name, he seeks to be strengthened, weak from strength; give him a yoke to be lifted in you from his debts. In the debt of his debts, he sinks and is cast like in the sea; behold, he is weary, that their lack of mercy may be raised to the height. To mercy, he looks that their help may be in the furnace of his labors, for he knows that his nature is weak before the waves.

in his weakness, even the weak one stirs up thoughts, and I gave my mind to follow him to the appointment of mercy. Mercy was like a guide before his ways, and showed him the path of forgiveness that awaits him. For forgiveness of sins awaits, and the bold one steers by the rule. Let go his sins, that he may be confident in the discipline of his life. Life is short, the life of the living is full of sins. Count his sins until the lamp of his life is extinguished. The lamp is the course of the life of his life, which burns life, and burns briefly, and from it pours forth the oil of mercy. His life flows sweetly like oil, and my lamp is extinguished, and the light of his eloquence is lost. The cave of his body hastens death violently, and becomes a ruin that is ruined without life. Without life, it endures in the abyss of ruin, until that daughter of the voice of the life of the dead sounds. In this ruin, it is again sought at all times, and moans lest it go in the darkness of his sins. He runs in his sins, asks for mercy and compassion, count his sins until he goes to the house of his fathers. To the house of death the fathers of the mortal one have gone, and in that likeness he also prepares provisions for his journey. The road is great, the road of death to the sons of Adam, and they travel every day, and it is not cut off from the travelers.

In this journey of weakness, the weak one is worn out every day, and he fears lest he go down to Sheol while he is guilty. He sees his sins, the debts of his guilt, for now the debt of his sins has come due from all generations. His guilt is great, and there is no end to his guilt, and the interest on the bond of his sins has filled up what he borrowed. The evil loan of the wicked one, the evil one, has borrowed from the evil one, and behold, the creditors have multiplied for you by means of the interest-bearing bonds. With bonds he began his body from the beginning, and in this habit he grew old, to end the days of his life. His habit has diminished him, and he also diminishes himself throughout his life, and he strives in his eyes to change the habit of his bonds. He loves man; have mercy on man, who strives through his life, and give him strength to cut the bond of his old age. You give strength in his weakness, for he is weak in strength, that he may not be broken before the threats and the pursuing demons. Behind two bonds the wrestler who is weak from all is cast, by the passions of his soul and the demons who mock his weakness. Strengthen the limbs of the weak one in strength, who seeks and persuades, and drive away from him the evil demons who rejoice in his blood. Do not, O Lord, give evil thoughts to be fulfilled, that they may not be exalted and mock in your great name. By your great name I have called good from the beginning; complete the calling of your name in the simplicity of your body.

Your names I have placed upon my head, while I have established truth by the deeds that please your name. Your name is heavy and cannot be spoken by utterances. Your name is not adorned by the names of your lowliness. If I have wronged, I have wronged, and I have not diminished you. To you there approaches neither loss nor gain. You are as you are, you are, and you are without change. And with all creatures your sign walks, while it does not weary. Wickedness of the evil and the violent does not fill you, nor does the praise of the righteous and the just glorify you. Bodies do not circumscribe the name of your righteousness, nor do elevations raise the rank of your perfection. One is the praise and the reproach for your greatness, while your essence does not receive a nature from among these. There is no nature for your nature, nor even this name of your nature, and from non-names the name of nature is designated. For you, no other nature that is designated among creatures is fitting, nor does the generic name of those that are designated suit you. Since creatures have named you only as one who is separate for you, and names that are inferior to you do not fly to your name. There is no name that is separate for the name of your silence, except one being that is without beginning. In this generic name that designates you, all that is created is that which you have taught the works of your hands, by which you are called.

To Moses your servant you revealed the name of your ineffability. It is evident that there is no other name for your name. Glorious is your will, which loves the work of his hands, and through his work shows the power of your ineffability. By this will my word is silent, loving words, and begins to give birth to words of pity for sinners. My word offers the sacrifice of words in place of speakers; may the receiver of sacrifices and prayers accept her sacrifice. Her sacrifice is a fitting one, full of thoughts. Have mercy on her words, even if they are errors from the norm. In a thoughtful manner she entreats you with little strength, like a widow before that judge who is compassionate. You have mounted the parable that shows the weakness of the body, and you have formed a demonstration in the story of her chaste mother. And if that compassionate one was ashamed of her, fittingly for his compassion, how much more will your own mercies be inclined toward sinners? If the compassionate one became a lover, as you have shown, show openly the power of your mercy toward our wickedness. If sorrow does not pursue the sorrow of the one who was wronged, how much more will you, sorrowful one, sorrowfully pursue our wrongdoing? Pursue, my Lord, our wrongdoings from the boundaries and from the path; pursue our houses with a pursuit that is fitting for your judgment. Two opposites were for you the cause of all evils: the evil inclination and the evil one who rebelled from the beginning.

Evil was it for your people, O King, that the angels of the heights went forth to seek a petition among the supplications of his angels. By his supplications he intoxicated the beauty of the fairness of your image, and it astonished the heavenly and the earthly. In the fairness of your image they were amazed before your folly, and when you made them foolish, they turned and marvelled at your wealth. Your image is fixed, depicting the image of him who has no riding, have mercy on your image, because your image has no riding. You have no image that can bear a riding, like mortals, and this is the wonder that your church celebrates without ceasing. By the name of your greatness you called the good one who is the whole good, let not the name of your goodness be changed by the evil of your iniquity. It is not possible, nor can it be, that this should happen, that your iniquity should seek to overcome the power that holds all. What is the iniquity of demons and men before the compassion of your mercies, or the evil of the whole creation before your mercy? Great is your mercy beyond the creatures that are from you, and your mercifulness is not understood by the work of your hands. By the evil of your mercies, the thoughts of the friends of folly grew dark, and they began to sin against the evil of the greatness of your mercies. The evil of your mercies you established in the house of the laws of the scriptures, and behold, six thousand are few and are not changed. Mercifully you have driven your will with all generations, and it has not diminished from what it is until the end.

He decreed against Adam the sentence of death because of sin, and Adam lived after sin for nine hundred and thirty years. He decreed against Cain seven vengeances for seven murders, and he did not complete the judgment decisively as he had decreed. He said that he would destroy everything he had made without mercy, and behold, the whole creation stands with all that exists. He cursed the stars that were servants and made servants, and from him the harsh kings took counsel and enslaved the peoples. You descended when you did not descend to the house of the Babylonians to make a treaty, and you changed your face to the waters of your army for the sake of dominion. You set foot on the land of Palestine so that no man might remain in it, and thousands of its inhabitants perished without mercy. You raised your hand against the Egyptians and changed your face, and there is no mercy that was not mingled with a little cruelty. You decreed to destroy the Israelites by the sword of force, and after you decreed, you spread your face guiltily. Guiltily we have seen that you have mixed every cup you have mixed, and there is no mercy that you have not mingled with sweetness. With your sweetness we are mixed and will be mixed, and we will not cease from the supplication concerning our sins. By the greatness of your love we are stirred at all times, like children who float every hour in the bosom of their fathers.

Your fatherhood is not comparable to any father, only to the Father. And you do not call the father who begot you guilty. You do not know another father except yourself, for there are no fathers whose debt is like your fatherhood. You alone are Father and Lord, and also Judge, for you have all your being without beginning. Without beginning you created everything that you created divinely, and there is nothing of yours that did not exist truly. To you, my Lord, it is fitting to raise the eyes of all people, and from you they ask for the gift of forgiveness and the remission of iniquity. Have mercy on my life, O source of life that does not die, and grant me the gift that fills peace and the assurance of life. My sins are many and my iniquity has surpassed my head, and I have come near to being drowned in the abyss of my faults. The measure of my debts is beyond measure, and my guilt is not to be contained by a known measure. I have swallowed much, even severe punishments, and my nature has not ceased from the practice of evil deeds. The weight of the multitude of my sins has increased from my errors, and I have not been able to bear my iniquity, nor all of it. If my iniquity testifies against me, my Lord, as it is written, you see and forgive because of your mercies that are not to be measured. Your mercy is not to be measured by measures, and if so, how can my iniquity remain standing?

The flood of your iniquity, how great it is! It has cast you like a gourd into the great sea of your sweetness. Do not reproach yourself for your sins like sinners, for you are better than any pardon; you are the garment of your sinfulness. You know yourself before your existence and after your becoming, and you pardon yourself in your evil nature, which is the one who prays. For you establish it and you cause it to be occupied with discourse; whatever from you has learned the discourse of the house of good for the evil one. And if you are great and he is the disciple of your greatness, perfect your disciple according to the will of your greatness. Take a pattern for the child, the youth who has been taught to you, and recite before him a discourse of words that give him life. Write the letters of the name of your essence upon his mind, and read them in the air, and preserve the order of the conduct of his life. Come and mark for him another law of the love of humanity, that it may bind its debt with the thousand of being and the sign of humanity. And humanity, when it has learned to read well, it is easy for it to write and to discourse in it in the freedom of its own self. The freedom of souls fills the self when it establishes it, and the good ruler is able to distinguish the two clearly. Distinguish the distinction, this division that is placed in your two natures, and know your two natures and your two establishments that are placed in you, the two.

Two souls have you, O soul, mistress of good and evil. How is it that you know how to distinguish between the two? With the taste of the flesh you separate the sweet from the bitter. Distinguish for yourself your own colors, as you have distinguished the poor one that is yours. Yours is fair to see, fair if you are fair. And when your beauty pleases you, the beauty of your soul, then your choice is good. For choice is good for every human being who stands in the soul, and it is easy for him to distinguish the foul from the fair. Fair is the measure that judges with the senses of the magicians, and condemns you who are not guilty to the guilt of your guilt. If you know how to follow the divine command, and change the times beyond the order of their changes, know that your sin is great, and the cord of your dissipation is stretched, and again you are fit to be woven into thick cords. Thick cords are guilty of your nature being woven, for it knows that it has sinned and does not remember the pursuit of judgment. It has heard that judgment will be at the end of the consummation, and does not refrain from the abandonment of the name of Gehenna. Woe to you, how far your thoughts have strayed from the guardian who is true to you, and the pursuit of judgment is not true. True to you is what the evil nature does not give, and concerning what it casts against what is true and chosen. True is your great judgment of the judges of your kind, all of them, and what will the deceivers do if they cut off your judgments?

Deceitfully you have heard the name of your Judge, O soul; but if you had heard it truly, you would not have sinned. Sin, as you have sinned, is like a pure vessel; it is fitting for the sinful one, the master of sins, to purify the vessels without being condemned. Over your debts, you have grown hot in all your life, and behold, you are heaping up purses that seek the remission of debts. Remit your debts, O Lord who rules over debts, and let my soul go free from the remembrance of the book of your judgments. Let my soul go out from the house of archives of your judgment, and let my soul go up to the place of angels and of the righteous. Let not a document written in Adam's manner remain against you, so that the sons of Adam may not be condemned by the debts of Adam. A document of debts was written after the eating of the fruit, and without paying it, one generation remains in the debt of his debts. That multitude of that command is great over his children, and they give their bodies as a pledge to death, that is, to the grave. Like skins, their bodies are stretched out for death, and behold, it fills them with worms in the pits of Sheol. Sheol, the swallower, has swallowed up the sons of dust, and there is no dust that sees in the dust of his bones. Moulder, O dust, have mercy on your dust that has become dust, and warm your dust from death and from debts. Of the two deaths, the evil one is worse than the one that brings you, through the destruction of death and through the corruptions of the evil of your nature.

Warm my life, O Lover of my life, from its two sides, and open before me the gate of death and the forgiveness of iniquity. Death and iniquity have seized before me the gate of all of them, and behold, they are pressed to imprint without feeling. You are the path of feeling and the pardon of sins, and you are the teacher who abolishes death and silences iniquity. From one side of the beginning of the way to the renewal of the side, give me the path to the fitting time of the renewal of my life. In the life of his life, seal the sign for the gates of my life, and trust that you do not deceive in the confession of your words. The vessel of the cup of the daughter from the side is full of sins, and behold, it is adorned with the splendors of your divinity. Glorious from all his creation is your people for the beginning of my life; honor my life because of the life of the one who chose them. The great love that cannot be spoken, I show before him, in that I have raised them to the great height of your name. Your plan is known, O Son of the Sea of your divinity, that you will appear to me concerning that which I have angered you wickedly. The prayer is said that he offers for sinners; behold, it is time to follow the order of prayers. Lovingly, from those who pray for his beloved, accept his words with the love that pleases your sweetness. Lovingly, you love him with the desire of your name; complete the fitting deed of his words that are for our sake.

Because of our petitions, pray with us, the head of our race. Lover of our race, hear the son of our race and have mercy on our race. The voice of our petitions, which the son of our race offers to you, and give us the hand of forgiveness of the sins for which we beseech you. Hear us, O Good One, for hearing you is the help of our words, and grant, you yourself, that the smallness of our reconciliation be toward you. Small is our reconciliation before the greatness of our guilt, and without reconciliation for you, even this is guilt. In the furnace of pains that are upon your sins, cast all of us, and that which is reconciled is a sting, and that which is not reconciled is again a piercing sting. It is a sting that is reconciled, without which you are empty of your reconciliation, and sting my sting, you who are without reconciliation upon my folly. You are not worthy of a reconciliation of words that are reconcilers, in that hearing you is a reconciliation of all of us before your reconciliation. See for yourself the iniquity of all the ages before all creatures, and when will the ages and sacrifices say with your essence? With your essence, your heart is yourself the measure of the measurable, and there is nothing in creation that exists that does not exist in you. With you is the memory of the books that were and will be, and there is nothing in deeds that is hidden from your knowledge. Revealed to you is our iniquity and the righteousness of the watchers and of man, and balanced for you is the recompense of the reward of the good and the evil.

And when it is good in you, the whole that is and that is to be, a sin that cannot be without being ashamed of our sins. Upon our debts we are poured out before your greatness, forgive our sins and grant a writ of absolution for the greatness of our iniquity. Have mercy, O sinner, on our wickedness, which at this hour is abundant, and our near sins that are to be companions of the Sodomites. Do not give a place to the iniquity that dwells in us, for if it dwells in us, a little will bring upon us the pursuit of Sodom. Let not, O Lord, companions be made in us like the Sodomites, lest the name of our wickedness be cast in the likeness of them. Cease from us the thread that resembles the Sodomites, and do not fashion in our land a dead likeness, a foul image of the land of Sodom. Woe and alas, the land of Sodom is from when it was burned, and barren and desolate of the entrances of seeds and fruits. Let us not see that rebellion, nor at all, and let not the name of its deeds be remembered in the conduct of our lives. Wretched lives full of sins, the life of our humanity, lover of healing, have mercy on our lives full of sins. Do not condemn us in the guilt of the sin of our sins, for behold, we have sinned for you a little, threads upon our sins. When you have driven away our oppression by the visible likenesses, do not add for us thick threads that will not perish for us. Raise your rod from the blows of your body and our land, and strike with the clubs of the heavens that are without end.

Make good the face of wrath, that it may not see us, and turn its back upon the fire that burns because of our iniquity. He signed for the course of the months of the year, which holds the reins, to cast the commands of supplication into troubled times. He called and warned the spirit that holds the power of the spirit, that the covering of the quaking of the fire might be removed from harshness. He set an order for the orderer of the silent times, that he might teach the face to keep the order of their changes. By their changes, which are without order, everything was diminished, and nothing remained that was not changed from what it was. The dwelling of man is poor and needy of all good things, and the body and soul are troubled by the course of the year. The peace of the body and the members fled from us, and our humanity stood like a tree in the days of winter. The course of the months of the year resembles a gloomy winter, and there is no hope that a good hand might bring forth a sign. There is no remembrance at all of anything that is alive and moving, except the sound of the axes that resounds in the earth. The sound of iniquity resounds only in the house of the earth, and the sound of good things is silent like a dead thing without life. The good things have died like a dead thing without hope, and the face has lost their doers as if to a dead thing. Good things have died, and the signs of the axes have lived. Woe to us, that we have become dead to truth and alive to iniquity.

He blotted out the face of the wicked one, the dead one, by our iniquities, and by our curses he slew the children of righteousness. He blotted out the seed of our righteousness from the wombs, and did not give it to the growth of the fruits of love. Like Pharaoh, our curse is opposed to truth, and the curse is a thing that does not resemble our help from the Egyptians. Pharaoh, the bodies of the children he cast into the waters of the river; he blotted out the life of the soul, drowning it in the mire of iniquity. The life of the soul, which is not mortal, the fire makes die; it is not that it becomes dead, but that it becomes the death of the wicked one. Evil is the death by which the wicked one dies, more than all deaths, and the voice that revives the dead bears witness, which interprets these things. Not that death is that which kills the body alone, but that which destroys together both body and soul. Body and soul it destroys together on the day of judgment. Woe to us, for the day of judgment is near, which will accomplish these things. Woe to us, for our body perishes here in affliction and pains, and we are destined to be tormented in body and soul. Woe to us, for we have worn out in misery in the time of the present, and in that which is to come we shall be stripped of all good things. Woe to us, for we have been and are not fair in the conduct of our life, and we are commanded and are not for the sake of our command. We dwell on the earth and have not established ourselves in its habitation, and we are like those in the conduct of the heavens.

We have no place for service except that one furnace which cannot be worked. Woe to us if the dwelling of our life should be completed in that service which is full of weeping and the grinding of teeth. Let not this which I have said be against our sins, and let it not be cut off from the good things of the righteous and the holy. Let us not go out from this world naked, and let us go as those who are needy of glory in that season. Let us not be separated from that glory which glorifies the good, and let us not go out like one who goes out from a feast. The good blessings have filled the body with one of the body, and let not the confession of your words be falsified by our slackness. Our slackness is great and we are hasty in the service of truth, and it brings us to do little in the things that are fitting. Great and abundant is the excess of life that is not mortal, and there is no care for us that one might take a hearer from it. Terrible is the judgment that will be there in that conduct, and it does not release us, and there is no hearer from our sins. Until the word whose hearing is abolished, it will seek with our hands, and it does not increase anything, and it does not please us in that test. That test came up upon my thought, a shepherd in words, and he trembled and was confounded, and began to compose a fitting of words. The fitting of his desire for my foolish thought to compose, for he knows that he is weak for composing the kinds of conduct.

The easy one is the agreement for the good works, better than labors. And because of this, my mind chose that which is easy. The sluggard does not hasten to tremble in labors, for he knows that the conduct of spiritual life is difficult. From the side of spiritual labors, my mind also fled, and behold it errs in the net of words in which it is concealed. Nakedly he saw his naked fellow, and he took words and spread them over his face from denial. In words he chose to conceal his apostasy, in that he heard that these are hidden from those who resemble him. The voice of the wise one heard, which rebukes the sluggard, and as from sleep it rouses the lazy to service. Until when does the wise one cry out to the sluggard, "You sleep and are silent from the service of righteousness"? The image of the diligent one presses the lazy one, bringing labors in which he may be tested, and rouses his mind to service. He saw the diligent one speaking with his companion, whose heart is heavy, and he learned from him small virtues and the wakefulness of the soul. He saw how wakeful is the soul of the diligent one toward his service, and rouse your limbs to the service of the virtues. He saw that he prepares provisions for his life before the assembly, and prepare also for yourself the provisions that are prepared for you. He saw that there is neither commander nor commanded between them, and make peace for yourself before your peacemaker comes later upon the labors.

These words, hear, O thoughts of the toilers in labors, and set hand to the labor of words of reconciliation. The reconciliation of words lays a foundation for the toilers in labors, for from words they become seekers of the toil of labors. The seeking of labors I desired to show to the toilers in labors, that they become seekers of their conduct above words. O sons of the seeking of spiritual labors, enter upon the words of labors of your conduct. Come, that you may be reconciled concerning the remission of the sins of the wicked; purify my word with your words in sorrow and tears. Come, that you may be perfected in their conduct, so that it may be possible; increase your labors as a mercy upon sinners. Come, sinners who have sinned and erred like sinners; pursue with words that fill meditation upon sinners. In the meditation of words upon sinners, my word meditated that it might teach the way that is full of grace and mercy. Grace and mercy purify my thought with the medicine of words, that through words the medicine of grace and mercy may be drunk. In the draught of words, the medicine of forgiveness of debts is purified, and the one who drinks it, every man, becomes strong and his wickedness is hidden. In this thought I placed the thought of the name of supplication, that I might seek and be reconciled concerning the debts of myself and my companions. Come, my companions, be to me companions in the reconciliation of words, and let us be reconciled together to that one who is not weary, who seeks reconciliation.

He seeks reconciliation, not as I said, but to change the supplications of those who supplicate him. In the manner of a great one, his sign stands above from the beginning, and he makes you wise, and the simplicity of his self is not made wise. He makes wise the man, have mercy on the man, the crooked of heart, that the books of your greatness may swim, filled with life. See that the nature of what is from you is weak in weaknesses, and do not cut it off, a debtor at all times from your stitches. Bring their creation from the living one as seems good to you, and with him, his pasture mingles the stitches of a loose formation. A loose formation purifies your sign with his living one, and it cannot tighten the looseness of his pasture apart from you. Sufferings make his life bitter in all his life, and he does not let go that he might be pressed in the labor of his life. In the manner of seekers, they stand above his waist and threaten him from the thickness of beautiful things. Night and day are erased from the memory of the forgotten, and there is no time that all the hunt of his thought is pressed. Summer and winter are toiling and agitated in deficiencies, and he labors and his deficiency is not filled. Like a wanderer, he also wanders, the righteous one, in his life, and knocks at all times at the door of the labors of every nation. A new finding of later labors he seeks every day, that he might find from where to offer an offering to the sacrificer of his life.

He does not cease from the toil of new labors, and as much as he labors, the poor one does not attain the fullness of his poverty. Or the poor one, son of the poor, who is poor and foolish, and is not able to preserve the order of his poverty. Or the wanderer whose summer and winter pass in a circle, and the needs of his soul are not filled from righteousness. Or the hireling whose life is spent in labors, and he works every day, and his wage is diminished without knowledge. Without knowledge, his diminished state made him also a wanderer, and as much as he wanders, his labor is great and his land is small. Small is his land, and he adds dust to the dust of Adam in the pits; he gathers his dust, have mercy on his dust until it perishes. A few gardens of short duration stand in his wretchedness, and behold, they are watered by the winds of afflictions from a place other than them. Afflictions roll over him like a wave, and raise him up like a shipwreck on the seashore. His afflictions, which are full of afflictions, resemble water and wind, and when they pass over him, he becomes like a threshing-floor before the feet. The foot of afflictions passes over him with the force of his mortality, and does not leave him to rest in one place. Behold, he is dragged and cast, his rest from resting in all places, and there is no place in creation that is not sown from his groan. Behold, they are scattered like seed in the depth of the earth, and they become food for reptiles and for birds.

One who is lacking, clothed in the bitterness of his formation, a bitter formation, that he might remain on the earth and become again a corpse for the dust. Let not this be a sin for you, that you have spoken, and let not the word of the mother of empty hope be established. Let not the great hope concerning your greatness be scattered, and let not the truth of your name be falsified by poverty. You are true, and in you the truth of your name is established, and falsehood does not approach you, nor any of its kind. Wait a little while in the confession of your words towards the people, and give us a hand to stand a little from your fall. Many are your labors in unceasing supplications, and if your help does not reach us, labor and toil forever. Forever you are, Lord, Lord of us and of all, and in you are established the heavens and the earth and everything in them. Not for us, Lord, not for us does the greatness of our iniquity demand, but give honor to your name that is fitting for your name. To your name, which is honored by the salvation that you work for us, that demons may not rejoice in it because of our iniquity. Because of our iniquity, the demons have greatly rejoiced in your name. Cut off the cause of those who seek pretexts by the remission of iniquity. Forgive our iniquity, and let not the name be remembered at all, and behold, the cause of those who seek a pretext is cut off. Cut off also this, that a reconciliation may be offered to you at all times, for behold, you are wearied by the fatigue of words when you are not wearied.

Behold, even your words have become bitter and diminished from their composition, and they are no longer able to compose the small limbs of supplication. Behold, the spoken word has wearied of giving birth to words, and it no longer desires to participate with thought. Behold, thought also remains with its own thought, and it no longer wishes to be occupied with the business of words. Behold, there are no words that have not been said concerning forgiveness, and however much one speaks, whatever one says, it is the same that is said. Behold, they have been said and are repeated from every mouth, and with a surplus that has no surplus beyond their weariness. Behold, the whole nature has raised a finger from everything, the lord of natures has shown you natures full of debts.