Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/301

Rh which he desired: and we also were somewhat sorry, for we had hoped that we should have heard some new thing But Judas straightway went out of the chamber, not able to contain himself for displeasure.

When the guests and the Pharisees were gone forth, and we were alone with Jesus, we would have questioned him still further concerning this matter; but we were afraid. Howbeit many of the common people, yea and some also of ourselves, expected that on the morrow Jesus should have made an assault on the barracks of the guard in Jericho and on the king's palace; or, at the least, that he should have suffered us to burn down the house of customs. But Jesus did none of these things: but on the morrow we set forth again to go up to Jerusalem. It was now the sixth day of the month Nisan, and the eighth day before the day of the Passover.

After we had journeyed for about an hour, the way being exceeding steep, and the sun (although it was not long risen) beating with an exceeding heat upon us, by reason of the rocks and cliffs around us and before us, it came to pass that we sat down to rest. And Jesus looked down upon Jericho, and on the palm trees thereof and on the balsam groves, and on all the gardens of the place, and then he turned and looked to the right hand upon the country where Jordan floweth into the Dead Sea, and he opened his mouth and taught us concerning the Kingdom of God. For he said that, as in old time the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had been swallowed up in that same sea of destruction which we saw before our eyes, even so should it be hereafter: and the Kingdom of Heaven should come in a flash, even as the lightning which lighteneth out of the one part under heaven and shineth unto the other part under heaven. But first he said that trouble should come upon the disciples; for the Son of man