Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Exhortation to Martyrdom/Part 5

4. That God does not easily pardon idolaters.

Moses in Exodus prays for the people, and does not obtain his prayer, saying: &#8220;I pray, O Lord, this people hath sinned a great sin. They have made them gods of gold.&#160; And now, if Thou forgivest them their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me out of the book which Thou hast written. And the Lord said unto Moses, If any one hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.&#8221; &#160; Moreover, when Jeremiah besought for the people, the Lord speaks to him, saying: &#8220;And pray not thou for this people, and entreat not for them in prayer and supplication; because I will not hear in the time wherein they shall call upon me in the time of their affliction.&#8221; Ezekiel also denounces this same anger of God upon those who sin against God, and says: &#8220;And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, whatsoever land sinneth against me, by committing an offence, I will stretch forth mine hand upon it, and will crush the support of the bread thereof; and I will send into it famine, and I will take away from it man and beast. And though these three men were in the midst of it, Noah, Daniel, and Job, they shall not deliver sons nor daughters; they themselves only shall be delivered.&#8221; Likewise in the first book of Kings: &#8220;If a man sin by offending against another, they shall beseech the Lord for him; but if a man sin against God, who shall entreat for him?&#8221;