First Apology 40

And hear how it was foretold also about those who proclaimed his teaching and made known his appearing, the prophet and king we mentioned speaking thus through the prophetic Spirit: “Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night proclaims knowledge. There are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In the sun he has set his tabernacle, and he, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, will rejoice like a giant to run his course.” And besides these, we have thought it good and fitting to mention other words prophesied through the same David, from which you can learn how the prophetic Spirit exhorts people to live, and how it indicates the conspiracy against Christ of Herod, the king of the Jews, and of the Jews themselves, and of Pilate, your procurator among them, with his soldiers; and that he was to be believed by people of every race; and that God calls him Son and has promised to subject all enemies to him; and how the demons, as far as they can, try to escape the power of God the Father and Master of all and of Christ himself; and how God calls all to repentance before the day of judgment comes. They are spoken thus: “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the pestilent; but his will is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night. And he will be like the tree planted by the streams of water, which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not fall off, and whatever he does will prosper. Not so the ungodly, not so, but like the chaff which the wind drives from the face of the earth. Therefore the ungodly will not rise in judgment, nor sinners in the council of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly will perish.” “Why did the nations rage, and the peoples devise new things? The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, saying: Let us break their bonds and cast away their yoke from us. He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them; then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his wrath he will trouble them. But I have been set by him as king on Zion his holy mountain, proclaiming the decree of the Lord. The Lord said to me: You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession. You will shepherd them with a rod of iron; like a potter's vessels you will shatter them. And now, kings, understand; be instructed, all who judge the earth. Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice in him with trembling. Lay hold of instruction, lest the Lord be angry and you perish from the righteous way, when his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who trust in him.”