nquer; and how can you
then most of all hope for God's assistance, when, by being forced to
transgress his law, you will make him turn his face from you? and if you
do observe the custom of the sabbath days, and will not be revealed
on to do any thing thereon, you will easily be taken, as were your
forefathers by Pompey, who was the busiest in his siege on those days on
which the besieged rested. But if in time of war you transgress the law
of your country, I cannot tell on whose account you will afterward go
to war; for your concern is but one, that you do nothing against any of
your forefathers; and how will you call upon God to assist you, when you
are voluntarily transgressing against his religion? Now all men that go
to war do it either as depending on Divine or on human assistance; but
since your going to war will cut off both those assistances, those that
are for going to war choose evident destruction. What hinders you from
slaying your children and wives with your own hands, and burning this
most excellent native city of yours? for by this mad prank you will,
however, escape the reproach of being beaten. But it were best, O
my friends, it were best, while the vessel is still in the haven, to
foresee the impending storm, and not to set sail out of the port into
the middle of the hurricanes; for we justly pity those who fall into
great misfortunes without fore-seeing them; but for him who rushes
into manifest ruin, he gains reproaches [instead of commiseration].
But certainly no one can imagine that you can enter into a war as by
agreement, or that when the Romans have got you under their power, they
will use you with moderation, or will not rather, for an example to
other nations, burn your holy city, and utterly destroy your whole
nation; for those of you who shall survive the war will not be able to
find a place whither to flee, since all men have the Romans for their
lords already, or are afraid they shall have hereafter. Nay, indeed, the
danger concerns not those Jews that dwell here only, but those of
them which dwell in other cities also; for there is no people upon the
habitable earth which have not some portion of you among them, whom your
enemies will slay, in case you go to war, and on that account also; and
so every city which hath Jews in it will be filled with slaughter for
the sake of a few men, and they who slay them will be pardoned; but if
that slaughter be not made by them, consider how wicked a