And, to speak with more feeling, I will speak confidently to the One who handed us over, as to a Father: “Abraham did not know us, and Israel did not recognize us; but You are our Father, and we look to You. Apart from You we know no other; we call upon Your name.” Therefore, as Jeremiah says, “I will make my case; nevertheless, I will speak with You about Your judgments.” We have become as we were at the beginning, when You did not rule over us; You forgot Your holy covenant and withheld Your mercies from us.
That is why we became a reproach to Your Beloved—we who worship the Trinity and take refuge wholly in the perfect Godhead. We did not dare to bring what is above us down to our level. Nor did we exalt ourselves, as godless tongues that fight against God do, so far as to reduce divine lordship to the status of a fellow servant. No: clearly we were handed over because of our other sins, because we did not live in a way worthy of Your commandments but followed our own evil thinking. What else could explain our being handed over to men more unjust and wicked than anyone else on earth?
The first Nebuchadnezzar crushed us. Though he lived after Christ, he raged against Christ and hated Christ precisely because he had been saved through Him, exchanging the sacred books for godless sacrifices. “He devoured me; he tore me apart; a faint darkness covered me”—for even in lament, let me not depart from Scripture. If the Lord had not helped me, my soul would almost have made its home in Hades. He also justly handed that man over to lawless hands and banished him to the Persians—such are the judgments of God! His blood was justly shed in return for unholy bloodshed; in this case alone, justice would not even wait.
The second was no kinder than the first, and perhaps even harsher. He was all the worse because, although he bore Christ’s name, he was a false Christ, both a burden and a disgrace to Christians. For them, to obey him was an act against God, while to suffer at his hands brought no honor. They did not even seem to have been wronged, nor was their suffering given the honored name of martyrdom. Here too, the truth was stolen away: they suffered as Christians but were punished as though they were godless.
Alas, how rich we became in troubles! Fire devoured all that was beautiful in the world. What the caterpillar left, the locust devoured; what the locust left, blight destroyed; then came another crop-eating pest, and after that I do not know what—one evil springing up after another. Why should anyone turn all the evils of that time into a tragedy or recount what overtook us then? Should we call it a settling of accounts, or a test and refining by fire? Enough to say that we passed through fire and water and came into a place of relief by the favor of God our Savior.