Prayer for Cleansing and the Judgment of the Wicked

He brings together more things, just as the name of a single thing sometimes participates in the common, and sometimes in the flesh being so named; just as the apostle, speaking of man as the image of God (Gen 1:26) because of the one having come into him from God which did not happen to a woman, clearly includes both soul and body, just as the male is distinguished from the female.

For example, also regarding Jonah, he fell into the sea while fleeing, and how he found the power of God regarding the movement of the waters, raising waves (Ps 138:9-10), and regarding the nature of living things, a sea-monster receiving him and not crushing him, and him being guarded in the sea-monster and undergoing no destruction.

'You know my substance,' he says, 'and the joining of my bones is your work (Ps 138:15-16); in the secret of a mother's womb, as if a land being variegated within, you knew me before I was formed; and I have been written by you as in a book, and every complete human being is being created by measured time in a quantity of days (Ps 138:17-18)'; which is indeed a wonder of order and of precise symmetry, that life-giving is being given without lacking a single day.

And I was not said to be short, they say, because the righteous are found to be few according to each season, but toward the whole multitude they were seen to be many who existed from eternity, and I saw them in great number and more in count, whom the resurrection will show as countless, and especially now having increased in multitude at the presence of Christ, according to the filling of the whole earth with knowledge (Hab 2:14).

the Lord, and I will praise You in a great assembly; among a heavy people, I will magnify You (Ps 138:23-24). Since there are things precious to You among the righteous men and laid up for eternal glory, but for the destruction of the wicked, I beseech You to be cleansed of all evil by the cleansing from You, since You are able to powerfully cleanse us even in the evils into which we fall through our ignorance.

Therefore, he says, lead me through good deeds upon which eternal life shall be stored up, cleansing me from every evil that leads toward destruction (Ps 139:9). It is fitting for God that it should be said that no mindset be granted to lawlessness, nor should they be permitted against righteousness, nor should the bitter and destructive things reach an end for them and be forgiven, but rather these things should be held fast upon which they possess bitterness. For when injustice occurs, it is much more difficult and it will increase the blasphemy against the righteousness of God (Ps 139:11).

And they will fall into a fall, not like the fall of the righteous who fall and rise again, but an unrelenting fall that no longer comes toward a resurrection; they will be brought into nothingness, unable to become established upon the earth, but being thrust out from it in corrupting punishments (Ps 140:2).

If in the morning we understand the life that is passing by in rest and glory, let us consider the one that is present in night and evening (Ps 140:2); in the evening, as if having some light remaining, for the sake of the knowledge of the good and the gifts from God, but at night, according to the darkness of evil and the tyranny of the rulers of this darkness. Therefore, man now needs an intense cry, because he has been struck.