(13) ¶Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

(3) It goes on falling, and the more it grows, The more it finds the dogs becoming wolves, This maledict and misadventurous ditch. Descended then through many a hollow gulf, It finds the foxes so replete with fraud, They fear no cunning that may master them. Nor will I cease because another hears me; And well 'twill be for him, if still he mind him Of what a truthful spirit to me unravels. Thy grandson I behold, who doth become A hunter of those wolves upon the bank Of the wild stream, and terrifies them all. He sells their flesh, it being yet alive; Thereafter slaughters them like ancient beeves; Many of life, himself of praise, deprives. Blood-stained he issues from the dismal forest; He leaves it such, a thousand years from now In its primeval state 'tis not re-wooded." As at the announcement of impending ills The face of him who listens is disturbed, From whate'er side the peril seize upon him; So I beheld that other soul, which stood Turned round to listen, grow disturbed and sad, When it had gathered to itself the word.

(28) And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them,

(3) "Do not show us before the tribes when we are angered by the words of their mouths, or because of their conduct. Neither shall you permit us to fall into a snare. Give us, instead, the creatures of the woods and of the fields, and also the female deer, and the female birds. Come and give us a little of your blood, have pity upon us. You may have the skins of the deer and guard us from those whose eyes have deceived us.

(177) Behold I have set you upon Moses' chair, and entrusted you with my flock; but you mind nothing but the wool, and mind not my sheep, and therewith you build your great palaces. But I will set you on the stool of pestilence, and my own Shepherd shall feed my sheep eternally.

(7) And after this they sinned against the beasts and birds, and all that moveth and walketh on the earth : and much blood was shed on the earth, and every imagination and desire of men imagined vanity , and evil continually.

(32) Thou suppressest the Miserable and Needy under thy Feet, and thou constrainest him with Necessity, and makest him vain, [or carelessly wicked,] so that he runs after thy Beast, and gazes upon thee, and also becomes a Servant of the Opposer of Christ; thy Beast whereon thou ridest is thy Strength and Power, which thou usurpest to thyself, thou fattenest thy Beast with the Fatness of the Earth, and thou crammest it with the Sweat of the Needy; it is filled with the Tears of the Miserable, whose Sighs and Groans press in through the Gate of the Deep to God, and (with their Pressing in) they awaken the Anger of God in thy Beast; as the Blood of Abel did the Anger in Cain.

(3) This was to punish them because they had not thought of their mother, nor their father, the Heart of Heaven, called Huracán. And for this reason the face of the earth was darkened and a black rain began to fall, by day and by night. Then came the small animals and the large animals, and sticks and stones struck their faces. And all began to speak: their earthen jars, their griddles, their plates, their pots, their grinding stones, all rose up and struck their faces. "You have done us much harm; you ate us, and now we shall kill you," said their dogs and birds of the barnyard.

(2) And the tribes seeing these things, as they walked, said: "Their screams are like those of the coyote, of the mountain cat, of the puma, and of the jaguar. They want to appear to the tribes as though they are not men, and they only do this to deceive us, we the people. Their hearts wish something. Surely, they do not frighten us with what they do. They mean something with the roaring of the puma, with the noise of the jaguar which they break into when they see one or two men walking; what they want is to make an end of us." Every day they [the priests] came to their houses and to their women, carrying only the young of the bumblebees and the wasps, and the honeybees to give to their women.

(99) Thou hast been a clear Glass (in him) of Men's own Conceits [or Opinions,] what one's own good Meaning (without the Spirit of God) is. Cain went not into the Sheepfold at the Door (which God made for Adam and Eve, with the Word, and Treader upon the Serpent,) but climbed into it another Way, by his strong lionish Mind, and would be a Lord over the Sheep, and became a Thief and Murderer of the Sheep, and the Sheep followed him not, but they went (with Abel) through the Sword of the Angel [or] Cherubim (out of this frail and corruptible Life) with the Treader upon the Serpent, into their resting Sheepfold, where there is not one Wolf; for the Cherubim will let none of them in. And if any of them come, then he cuts their Wolf's Heart of the Fierceness of the Kingdom of this World quite away, and then they also become Sheep, and lay themselves patiently among the Sheep, and seek no more after the Wolf, for he is beyond Eden, in the Land of Nod; but they are gone through the Sword of the Cherubim into Paradise, where no Wolf enters in; there is a Wall of a Principle and whole a Birth before it.

(29) and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.

(415) Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons’ sons, and posterity after them. I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may come down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and prepare their dwellings. Just so, he said. And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer. I suppose that you mean houses, he replied. Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shop-keepers. What is the difference? he said. That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watch-dogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd? Truly monstrous, he said.

(37) And if the wolves make peace with the lambs so as not to devour or do them violence, And if their hearts are towards them for good, Then there will l>e peace in my heart towards thee.

(8) Now there was a good way off from them a herd of swine feeding. And the devils besought Jesus, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.

(36) And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

(3) Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: and the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

(18) And Isaac said to his father, " Father " ; and he said, " Here am I, my son." And he said unto him, " Behold the fire, and the knife, and the wood ; but where is the sheep for the burnt-offering, father? "

(48) 1 say not that thou receivest the Wrath of God in the Bread and in the Wine, but in thy false Confidence; thou art with thy Body and Soul in the Anger, and wilt not go out from it. Why then dost thou approach often to the Covenant of God, seeing thou art captivated of the Devil? Dost thou think that he will adorn thy Hypocrisy, and will hang his Pearl on thee? Thou art a Wolf, and howlest with the Dogs; thy Mouth prays, and thy Soul is abominably wicked [and naught;] when it goes from the Testament of Christ, it enters into the Stall of Robbery again, and is a Murderer; it howls with the Dogs; it is a bGod. perfidious Whore; when it goes away from the Covenant, it steps into whorish Corners, into the Den of Thieves; and there they stand, and pretend great Holiness. O, this Day is a holy Day to me, I must not sin; and yet they think, Tomorrow or next Day, they will go thither again.

(69) Whereby it is seen, how great the Anger was in Adam and Eve, in that the wrathful Kingdom sooner overcame than the Kingdom of Heaven; and the Scorner is sooner generated than the upright. But yet the Fault of this was in the Parents; had they not sinned, and let the Anger into them, then it had not been so, as at this Day.

(34) I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is a hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep.