Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| I am moved also to recall some testimonies from outside our faith to the divinity of Christ. For from these it is plain that even the minds of those who blaspheme him know that he is God and God's Son, if indeed they believe their own words.
2| The Erythraean Sibyl, then, who says of herself that she was born in the sixth generation after the flood, served as a priestess of Apollo. She wore a diadem just like that of the god she served, tended the tripod around which the serpent coiled, and gave oracles to those who consulted her, for her parents in their folly had given her over to that kind of worship, from which come unseemly frenzies and nothing that is holy, just as in the stories told about Daphne.
3| This woman, then, having once been led into the inner sanctuary of her ill-timed superstition, and having become truly filled with divine inspiration, foretold in verse what was to come concerning God; and by the order of the first letters of the lines, which is called an acrostic, she clearly set out the story of the coming down of Jesus. "Judgment's sign: the earth will run with sweat, when it comes. From heaven will come the King who is to reign for the ages, present to judge all flesh and the whole world. Mortals, faithful and faithless alike, will see God Most High with his saints at the end of time, and he will judge the souls of men clothed in flesh at his judgment seat, when the whole world becomes barren and grows up in thorns, and mortals cast away their idols and all their wealth, and fire burns up earth and heaven and sea, and, tracking them down, bursts open the gates of the prison of Hades.
4| "Then all the flesh of the dead will come into the light of freedom; fire will put the holy and the lawless to the test for ages; whatever anyone did in secret, he will then speak of it all. For God will open dark hearts with his lights, and there will be lamentation from all and gnashing of teeth. The blaze of the sun and the dances of the stars will fail; he will roll up the heaven, and the light of the moon will perish. He will raise up the valleys and destroy the heights of the hills. No longer will grievous height appear among men; the mountains will be level with the plains, and the whole sea will no longer yield to sailing; for the earth will be scorched by the thunderbolt, and the roaring rivers will fail, and their springs with them. A trumpet from heaven will send forth a voice of much lamentation, wailing for the wretchedness and the woes of the world. Then the earth will gape open and show the chaos of Tartarus, and all kings will come before the judgment seat of God. From heaven will flow a river of fire and of brimstone. And then there will be a sign for all mortals, conspicuous to see: the wood among the faithful, the longed-for horn, the life of godly men and the stumbling block of the world, enlightening the called with water in twelve springs; a shepherding rod of iron will hold sway. This is our God, now set forth in the acrostic: Savior, immortal King, who suffered for our sake."
5| And it was evidently by God's prompting that it fell to the maiden to proclaim these things beforehand. For my part I count her blessed, whom the Savior chose as the prophetess of his providence toward us.
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