ions after a pompous manner, and
contend one with another which of you shall be more wicked than another;
and you make a public demonstration of your injustice, as if it were
virtue. However, there is a place left for your preservation, if you
be willing to accept of it; and God is easily reconciled to those that
confess their faults, and repent of them. O hard-hearted wretches as
you are! cast away all your arms, and take pity of your country already
going to ruin; return from your wicked ways, and have regard to the
excellency of that city which you are going to betray, to that excellent
temple with the donations of so many countries in it. Who could bear to
be the first that should set that temple on fire? who could be willing
that these things should be no more? and what is there that can better
deserve to be preserved? O insensible creatures, and more stupid than
are the stones themselves! And if you cannot look at these things with
discerning eyes, yet, however, have pity upon your families, and set
before every one of your eyes your children, and wives, and parents,
who will be gradually consumed either by famine or by war. I am sensible
that this danger will extend to my mother, and wife, and to that family
of mine who have been by no means ignoble, and indeed to one that hath
been very eminent in old time; and perhaps you may imagine that it is
on their account only that I give you this advice; if that be all, kill
them; nay, take my own blood as a reward, if it may but procure your
preservation; for I am ready to die, in case you will but return to a
sound mind after my death."

CHAPTER 10.

How A Great Many Of The People Earnestly Endeavored To
Desert To The Romans; As Also What Intolerable Things Those
That Staid Behind Suffered By Famine, And The Sad
Consequences Thereof.

1. As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the seditious would
neither yield to what he said, nor did they deem it safe for them to
alter their conduct; but as for the people, they had a great inclination
to desert to the Romans; accordingly, some of them sold what they had,
and even the most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by
them, for every small matter, and swallowed down pieces of gold, that
they might not be found out by the robbers; and when they had escaped
to the Romans, went to stool, and had wherewithal to provide plentifully
for themselves; for Titus let a great number of t