At such a threat My disciples came to Me and said: ‘Lord! How can You listen to such a thing?! Have You not enough power to destroy such vermin?! The people of Sychar were driven away several times when they wished to oppose You, and yet You did not do as much in Sychar as in Capernaum!’
I say: ‘I would indeed have power for that more than abundantly. But the Lord of life has no need to hold judgment here; for after this life comes another life that never ends, whether good or (Matt. 11:20) bad, its duration is the same! And for that eternal time I now pronounce a just judgment in advance and curse all the cities in which I have nevertheless done so much good and now receive such a reward as you have just heard!
‘And they have not improved despite all My preaching and have remained mute in their hearts concerning all My deeds! (Matt. 11:21) Therefore woe to you, Chorazim, woe to you, Bethsaida! Had such deeds happened in Tyre and Sidon as have happened among you, they would in their time have repented in sackcloth and ashes!
‘Yet I (Matt. 11:22) tell you: it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the Last Day of Judgment in the (Matt. 11:23) other world than for these!
‘And you, proud Capernaum, who were raised up to heaven, you will be thrust down into hell! For if such deeds had happened in Sodom as have happened in you, that city would still stand today!
‘(Matt. 11:24) Yet I tell you again: one day in the other world on the Last Day of Judgment, it will be more bearable for the land of the Sodomites than for you, proud, hard city, ungrateful beyond all measure! Is it for this, then, that I have healed thousands of your sick and raised your dead, that you now curse Me?! A thousandfold woe to you on the Day of Judgment beyond! There you shall learn who He was whom you cursed!’
After this rebuke of Mine, many received a vision and beheld how, on the Last Day, things would go for such cities as I had now cursed. They saw My form in the clouds and a curse proceeding from My mouth, and how it struck the cursed cities!
When this vision again passed from the most immature—that is, simple people of both sexes who loved Me and surrounded Me—they fell down before Me and praised and extolled Me.
But I (Matt. 11:25) raised My hands over them, blessed them and said: ‘I too, now as a human being, praise You, Father and Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden this from these wise and shrewd people of the world and revealed it to the immature! (Matt. 11:26) Yes, holy Father, thus it is pleasing before You and Me! For what You do, I also do, for We have indeed been One from eternity! I was never another than You, holy Father, and what is Yours is also Mine from eternity!’
At these last words a great fear begins to seize everyone. For among the disciples who constantly followed Me there were now already many who no longer had any doubt about My divinity, and these very ones were seized by the greatest fear.