The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
From the Second Discourse, Concerning God
High-thundering, blessed one, heavenly, who upon the Cherubim
art enthroned, I beseech you, who have declared all truth,
stay me a little while, for my heart within is spent.
But why does my heart pound again, and my spirit,
struck as with a lash, is driven from within to raise its voice
and proclaim to all; yet again I will tell out everything,
all that God bids me proclaim to mankind.
Men who bear a god-fashioned form in your image,
why do you wander in vain, and not the straight path
walk, remembering always the undying Creator?
One God there is, sole ruler, unutterable, dwelling in the sky,
self-begotten, unseen, himself beholding all things.
No hand of stone-cutter made him, nor out of gold
does craft of man display his likeness, nor of ivory;
but he himself revealed himself, eternal, being of himself,
existing now and having existed before, and again hereafter.
For what mortal can behold God with his eyes?
Or who can bear even to hear his name alone,
the heavenly God, the great, who rules the world,
who by his word made all things, both heaven and sea,
and the unwearying sun and the moon at her full,
and the shining stars, and mighty mother Tethys,
springs and rivers, unfailing fire, days and nights,
he himself is God who fashioned Adam of four letters,
the first man fashioned, who fulfilled the name
of the rising and the setting, the noonday and the north.
He it was who set the pattern of mortal shape,
and made the beasts, and creeping things, and birds.
You do not revere, nor fear God, but wander vainly,
bowing before serpents and sacrificing to cats,
to voiceless idols and to stone images of men;
and sitting before the doors of godless temples
keep watch over the God that is, who guards all things,
delighting in the vileness of stones, forgetting the judgment
of the immortal Savior, who made heaven and earth.
Ah, blood-loving race, deceitful, wicked, impious,
of lying, double-tongued men and evil-minded,
bed-defilers, idol-worshippers, contriving deceit,
in whose breasts is evil, in whom a maddened frenzy dwells,
seizing for themselves, having shameless hearts;
for no one rich and possessing will share with another,
but there will be dread wickedness for all mortals,
and they will hold no faith at all, and widowed women
will secretly cleave to other men, many for gain,
not keeping the bond of life allotted to their husbands.
But when Rome shall also rule over Egypt,
still tarrying, then indeed the greatest kingdom
of the immortal King will appear among men.
And a holy Lord shall come, to hold the scepter of all the earth