silver, and ye will clothe him with costly apparel; and because he speaketh flattering words unto you, and he saith that all is well, then ye will not find fault with him. O ye wicked and ye perverse generation; ye hardened and ye stiffnecked people, how long will ye suppose that the Lord will suffer you; yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides; yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light; yea, behold the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you; behold, he hath cursed the land, because of your iniquity; and behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that it becometh slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them; and in the days of your poverty, ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts. And then shall ye lament, and say, O that I had repented, and had not killed the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out; yea, in that day ye shall say, O that we had remembered the Lord our God, in the day that he gave us our riches, and then they would not have become slippery, that we should lose them; for behold, our riches are gone from us. Behold, we lay a tool here, and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle.— Yea, we have hid up our treasures, and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land.— O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them. Behold we are surrounded by demons, yea, we are encircled about by the angels of him who hath sought to destroy our souls. Behold, our iniquities are great. O Lord, canst thou not turn away thine anger from us? And this shall be your language in those days. But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation, until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head. O ye people of the land, that ye would hear my words. And I pray [p. 469]