Then I heard him cry aloud, Make way there for the plagues that must befall the city, for the weapon-bearers of death!

And with that, from the upper gate which looks northwards, I saw six men coming on their way, and none of them but bore his deadly weapon; in their midst walked another, clad in linen, with a writer’s ink-horn at his girdle. All, when they had entered, took their stand by the brazen altar;

and now, borne on cherub wings, the glory of Israel’s God rose above the threshold of the house, summoning him of the linen clothes and the ink-horn to set about his task.

Make thy way, the Lord said to him, all through the city, from end to end of Jerusalem; and where thou findest men that weep and wail over the foul deeds done in it, mark their brows with a cross.✻

To the others I heard him say, Yours it is to traverse the city at his heels, and smite. Never let eye of yours melt with pity;

old and young, man and maid, mother and child, all alike destroy till none is left, save only where you see the cross marked on them. And begin first with the temple itself.

So they began with the elders in the court.

Desecrate yonder temple, said he, and fill its precincts with the slain; then go out on your errand. So out they went, and now it was on the city their strokes came.

And I, left alone amid that carnage, fell face to earth; Alas, alas, Lord God, cried I, wilt thou destroy all the poor remnant of Israel, pouring out thy vengeance on Jerusalem thus?

Nay, he told me, the guilt of Israel and Juda is past bound or measure; all bloodshed the country-side, the city all wrong-doing; The Lord has forsaken the land for good and all, say they; fear is none the Lord will see it.

And should eye of mine melt with pity? Nay, they shall rue yet the false paths they have taken.

And sure enough, the man clad in linen stood there with the ink-horn at his side to give account of himself, and reported, I have done thy errand.