e
judgment of heaven urging him forward, because he had spoken so proudly,
that he would come to Jerusalem, and make it a common burying place of
the Jews.

9:5. But the Lord, the God of Israel, that seeth all things, struck him
with an incurable and an invisible plague. For as soon as he had ended
these words, a dreadful pain in his bowels came upon him, and bitter
torments of the inner parts.

9:6. And indeed very justly, seeing he had tormented the bowels of
others with many and new torments, albeit he by no means ceased from his
malice.

9:7. Moreover, being filled with pride, breathing out fire in his rage
against the Jews, and commanding the matter to be hastened, it happened
as he was going with violence, that he fell from the chariot, so that
his limbs were much pained by a grievous bruising of the body.

9:8. Thus he that seemed to himself to command even the waves of the
sea, being proud above the condition of man, and to weigh the heights of
the mountains in a balance, now being cast down to the ground, was
carried in a litter, bearing witness to the manifest power of God in
himself:

9:9. So that worms swarmed out of the body of this man, and whilst he
lived in sorrow and pain, his flesh fell off, and the filthiness of his
smell was noisome to the army.

9:10. And the man that thought a little before he could reach to the
stars of heaven, no man could endure to carry, for the intolerable
stench.

9:11. And by this means, being brought from his great pride, he began to
come to the knowledge of himself, being admonished by the scourge of
God, his pains increasing every moment.

9:12. And when he himself could not now abide his own stench, he spoke
thus: It is just to be subject to God, and that a mortal man should not
equal himself to God.

9:13. Then this wicked man prayed to the Lord, of whom he was not like
to obtain mercy.

Of whom he was not like to obtain mercy... Because his repentance was
not for the offence committed against God: but barely on account of his
present sufferings.

9:14. And the city, to which he was going in haste to lay it even with
the ground, and to make it a common burying place, he now desireth to
make free:

9:15. And the Jews, whom he said he would not account worthy to be so
much as buried, but would give them up to be devoured by the birds and
wild beasts, and would utterly destroy them with their children, he now
promiseth to make equal with the Athenians.