God’s Jealousy for His Honour

Jesus, having withdrawn into a hollow part of the desert in Tiro near to Jordan, called together the seventy-two with the twelve, and, when he had seated himself upon a stone, made them to sit near him. And he opened his mouth with a sigh and said: 'This day have we seen a great wickedness in Judaea and in Israel, and such an one that my heart yet trembleth within my breast for fear of God. Verily I say unto you, that God is jealous for his honour, and loveth Israel as a lover. Ye know that when a youth loveth a lady, and she love not him, but another, he is moved to indignation and slayeth his rival. Even so, I tell you, doth God: for, when Israel hath loved anything by reason whereof he forgetteth God, God hath brought such thing to nought. Now what thing is more dear to God here on earth than the priesthood and the holy temple? Nevertheless, in the time of Jeremiah the prophet, when the people had forgotten God, and boasted only of the temple, for that there was none like it in all the world, God raised up his wrath by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and with an army caused him to take the holy city and burn it with the sacred temple, insomuch that the sacred things which the prophets of God trembled to touch were trodden under foot of infidels full of wickedness.'

'Abraham loved his son Ishmael a little more that was right, wherefore God commanded, in order to kill that evil love out of the heart of Abraham, that he should slay his son; which he would have done had the knife cut.'

'David loved Absalom vehemently, and therefore God brought it to pass that the son rebelled against his father and was suspended by his hair and slain by Joab. O fearful judgement of God that Absalom loved his hair above all things, and this was turned into a rope to hang him withal!'

'Innocent Job came near to loving [over much] his seven sons and three daughters, when God gave him into the hand of Satan, who not only deprived him of his sons and his riches in one day, but smote him also with grievous sickness, insomuch that for seven years following worms came out of his flesh.'

'Our father Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons, wherefore God caused him to be sold, and caused Jacob to be deceived by these same sons, insomuch that he believed that the beasts had devoured his son, and so abode ten years mourning.'