Immediately afterward a fairly large crowd armed with clubs comes toward us, and in its midst are ten mute men whom the physician had made mute on the first evening because of their abuse. The crowd threateningly demands that these mute men’s tongues be loosened again.
But Joram the physician immediately steps forward and says in a firm, manly voice, ‘O you children of evil! Is this the new way to come to God and implore Him for a grace?’
Then the crowd draws back a little and shouts, ‘Who is God here, and where is He? Do you perhaps take yourself for God, or that sorcerer from Galilee, you broad-shouldered blasphemer?’
Joram says more vehemently, ‘Who is your sorcerer from Galilee, you miserable wretches?’ The crowd shouts, ‘It is that carpenter from Nazareth named Jesus, whom we know very well, as we do his mother, who is now here too, and his brothers and sisters, who are also here! We knew his father as well, who is said to have died a year ago, and, as we heard, of grief because his wife and children would not obey him and are supposed to have cheated him on every side!’
Here Joram becomes quite beside himself with anger at such defamation. He immediately hurries before Me; James and John also come forward and say with Joram, ‘Lord, Lord, Lord! Let fire now fall quickly from heaven among these fellows so that they are consumed! It cries out to heaven, what utterly brazen lies they dare utter before us!’
I say, ‘Well then, you children of thunder, let them lie! Is there any fire that burns worse than that of falsehood? Do them good besides in return, and they will run away with glowing coals upon their heads! Remember this: never repay bad with bad or evil with evil!’ At this the three admonish themselves, and Joram asks what he should now do to these evildoers.
I say, ‘In My name, do for them what they demand, and then bid them leave!’ Joram then says to the crowd, ‘In the Lord’s name, let everyone among you who is mute now speak, then go on his way home and give God the glory!’
At these words of Joram the tongues of all who were mute are loosened; but they did not give God the glory, except for one, who at least admonished the others. But when they said, ‘You fool! Was it Jehovah who made us mute? Someone skilled in sorcery inflicted this harm on us, and are we therefore to pay honor to the heathen god of sorcery? If we did that, what would we then have to expect from the almighty, true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?’, the one slightly better man also went away with the other nine and did not dare give Me the honor due.
Joram and all My people were angered by this, and Simon Peter too came to Me full of anger and said, ‘Lord, it is surely good as it pleases You; but if I possessed even a spark of Your spiritual strength and power, I would know what I would have done to these foolish and evil blasphemers of Your so exceedingly holy name!’
I say, ‘Simon, have you already forgotten My teaching that I gave on the mountain? What good can you accomplish by repaying evil with evil? If you cook a dish that is in itself bland and unpalatable, will you act wisely if, because the cooked dish is in itself bland and unpalatable, you pour gall and aloe juice over it instead of making it tasty with good salt, milk and honey? If you add something better to a dish that is already good, surely no one will accuse you of folly. But if you wish to make a bad dish worse than it already is at bottom by adding things that are worse still, tell Me: where is a person of any understanding who will not at once say to you, “Look there! What is this fool doing?”
‘Look, this applies all the more among human beings. If you repay their evil with still more evil, ask yourself whether their evil ever becomes better through it! But if you repay the evil done to you with good, you will thereby soften the evil in your brother and in the end bring a good brother out of him.
‘If a master has a servant to whom he entrusts much, but the servant, knowing his master’s goodness, sins against him and therefore deserves chastisement, and the master calls the servant and confronts him with his unfaithfulness, but the servant grows angry at this and answers his master with shameful contradiction, will the master thereby become better and gentler toward his servant? No, I say! Then the servant’s master will become angry at the unfaithful servant and have him bound and thrown into prison.
‘But if the servant, seeing that his master intends to do him harm, falls down before his master, confesses his offense to him repentantly and, full of gentleness and love, begs him to forgive his guilt, will the master then treat the servant as before? No, I say! Through the servant’s repentant gentleness the master becomes gentle and yielding, and will not only forgive the servant everything but also do him good on top of it.
‘Therefore never repay evil with evil if you all wish to become good. But if you judge and punish those who sinned against you, in the end you will all become evil, and in no one will there be any right love or anything good left!
‘The powerful man will claim a right to punish those who transgress his laws, but the sinners will in turn burn with revenge and seek to destroy the powerful man. The question is: what good will come of this in the end?
‘Therefore judge and condemn no one, so that you are not judged and condemned in turn! Have you all understood this most important teaching, without which My kingdom can never find room in you?’