Nisibene Hymns

¹ O feeble ones, why do you weep over your dead: who in death are at rest from sorrows and sins?— 2. R., Glory to Him Who endured all, for the sake of all men: yea tasted death for the sake of all, to bring all to life— 3. I reveal unto you, that even Satan, though much content: at your weeping, yet laughs much, at your mourning.— 4. In mockery he winks at me and nods to me, as a jester: “Come let us laugh at sinners, for lo! They are mad.”— 5. Truly they have given up remembrance of that fire, which I have hidden for them: and lo!

The fools are drunken with weeping, for their departed.— 6. Instead of weeping as though, without provision: I had plundered and sent forth their dead, lo! They are mad.— 7. The souls of the evil are to be afflicted, till the judgment day: and these weep over the graves, like to madmen.— 8. They care not for their own sins, that haply tomorrow: they must go in shame of face, to join their dead.— 9. And thus shall all be put to shame alike, family by family: in Sheol the wretches shall repent without avail.— 10.

Leave the drunken and the madman, until that day: wherein each shall shake off his wine wherewith he was maddened.— 11. I will go to gather them, like children: that they may play the wanton and the madman, until they perish.— 12. Lo! I have revealed to you the mystery, the secret of my comrade: go forth therefore, depart, amend, in repentance.— 13. Leave me, I too will depart, I will see to my affairs: that with open face I may give my account to my Lord.— 14. I know that the wind as it blew, has borne away my words: for you are the same whom I, ofttimes have proved.— 15.

I remember Jeremiah how he, compared boldness: to the Indian who changes not his skin, though it is of freedom.— 16. For this too belongs to it, even to freedom: that it binds itself by the will, as though by nature.— 17. For so powerful is the will, in them that are free: that it may be likened to nature, through its workings.