The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
and sacrifice to idols? Who has set delusion in your minds,
to do these things, forsaking the face of the great God?
Hold in reverence the name of the All-Begetter, and do not forget it.
A thousand years there are, and five hundred more besides,
since arrogant kings began to reign,
kings of the Greeks, who first led mortals into evil,
raising up many idols of dead gods who had perished,
on account of which vain thinking was shown to you.
But whenever the wrath of the great God shall come upon you,
then indeed you will come to know the face of the great God.
And all the souls of men, groaning greatly,
lifting up their hands toward the wide heaven,
will begin to call upon the great king as their defender
and to seek who will be the deliverer from the great wrath.
But come, learn this too, and lay it up in your hearts,
what troubles there shall be as the years roll round.
And when Hellas offers up bulls and loud-bellowing oxen
as whole burnt offerings before the temple of the great God,
you shall escape the din of war and escape fear,
and escape the plague, and be freed once more from the slaves' yoke.
But the race of ungodly men shall persist only until this measure,
when that fated day at last overtakes it.
For you will not cease sacrificing to God, until all comes to pass
that God alone has ordained; nothing is left unfulfilled.
All shall be accomplished, and mighty necessity shall bear down upon it.
A holy race of pious men shall arise again,
devoted in counsel and mind to the Most High,
who greatly honor the temple of the great God
with libation and fat-smoke, and again with holy hecatombs,
with sacrifices of well-fed bulls and perfect rams,
firstborn sheep and fat young of lambs,
offering whole burnt offerings in holiness upon the great altar.
And having received a portion in the righteousness of the law of the Most High,
blessed, they shall dwell in cities and fertile fields,
themselves exalted as prophets by the Immortal One,
bringing great joy to all mortal men.
For to them alone did the great God give wise counsel
and faith and the noblest understanding in their breasts,
who neither by empty deceits nor by the works of men
wrought in gold and bronze and silver and ivory,
and idols of wood and stone, of gods that have perished,
clay figures smeared with ochre, painted images shaped like living things,
do they honor, such as mortals in their vain-minded counsel
do honor — but instead they lift toward heaven their pure arms
at dawn, rising from their beds, ever purifying their flesh
with water, and honor only the one who forever rules,
the Immortal One, and after him their parents; and beyond all else
of men, they are mindful of the sanctity of the marriage bed;
and they do not mingle impurely with male children,
as do the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Latins.