The Samaritans’ disgraceful expulsion of the high priest Jonael. ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways’. The Lord’s imponderable acquiescence. A seemingly just petition.

1. But now I call over the two Sycharites, to put to Me the case for which they came here. And Jonael, the spokesman, says, 'Lord, You actually had already touched upon the correct reason earlier, and so it is! It nevertheless is hard to believe that people who together with us have the enduringly great signs of Your divine power before their eyes, should be so evil! They acknowledge the truth and persecute it for the very reason that they have to acknowledge it as truth! Me they have expelled; had brother Jairuth not taken me in, together with my family, I should be without roof over my head!

2. Lord, how fervently and how often I had prayed to You in spirit for You to come and stand by me against my enemies, yet it was in vain, and you did not come to help us out of our worst plight!

3. Whilst it is true that You left us in Your stead visible angels to serve us, these don't want to always act, or in a manner I consider as desirable; for they say that they can do nothing without Your will, for only Your will is their entire power and authority! This is all true of course; yet with the offended old arch-Samaritans expelling hundreds of Your followers from the country, so that they have to seek shelter with the heathens, with the necessary consequence of the expelled themselves becoming heathens, then surely it ought to be in order for Your angels to intervene, to put an end to such evil doings, rather than watch all this and hang their faces with us, sighing and exclaiming with us; Are not the Lord's counsels always mysterious, and unfathomable His ways!

4. But what does this help? Hundreds turn into heathens, hundreds are caned and mocked in public places for Your name's sake.

5. Joram had to leave Sychar for a time, and the house that Jacob built meanwhile stands empty and locked up. And Joram and his wife now also find themselves in brother Jairuth's house, like many other respectable families who no longer were tolerated in Sychar on Your account.

6. Yet against all this Your angels, who dwell with us, have taken not one step! Lord, Lord, in Your holiest name! What is the good of all this?

7. Must all power and might over You be ceded to Satan on this earth? Or is his hell in all earnest more powerful than Your heavens? Lord, if this continues, then mankind of a truth shall be forced to erect temples and sacrificial altars to Satan, and pull Yours down. A most sorry state of the times!

8. What is now the divine service in Gerizim and even in the Jerusalem Temple, other than sheerest Satan service! I know it through Your own mouth, Yourself being the Lord Himself Who dwells within You in all fullness bodily, how God wants to be honored and worshipped. Then look at the service at Gerizim, and you have the truest and most authentic Satan service; for there, in all earnest and not denied even by Your angels, incense is scattered to Satan in full measure.

9. Faithfully and truly, Lord, thus it goes on, and cannot be a secret to You that it does so, and yet You are allowing it to be so and to go on. Lord, how are we to take this and to understand Your holy Word?

10. And even the honest brother Jairuth, fully devoted to You, together with his entire house, day after day is receiving threats to either declare himself a Samaritan without delay, or suffer dispossession of all properties.

11. Many who had already staunchly embraced Your teaching, oh Lord, have let themselves be intimidated by daily threats and prescribed cursing and oaths, and have reverted to the purest Satan service.

12. Behold, Lord, such things are taking place, to which Your angels indeed are at all times veiling their faces, but to what end such formal sympathy?

13. Lord, You can see into my heart, totally devoted to You; and thus I speak to You without pretence and say, here a sympathetic watching is as untimely as a fig just three days after dropping of the blossoms. Here only weighing in forcefully with all power will do, or Satan gains ground and root.

14. And if already now Your disciples cannot prevail against him, what shall they do after he has attained to full power, which should not be too hard for him, if continuing unopposed, as is the unfortunate case up till now, when not even Your angels dare to undertake anything against him?

15. For the sake of Your holy name and for the sake of all those who, like us, still cling to Your name unshakably, stand by us and free us from Satan's slings.

16. Did You not Yourself up on the mountain teach us how to pray; yet behold, it is getting worse by the day instead of better.

17. We are willing to offer up everything to You and to suffer poverty to the limit out of our love for You. But some spot upon earth surely you will not begrudge us; for in order to follow You, one cannot live among wolves, hyenas and bears, unless one wished to become like unto those beasts.

18. We are not asking for a peaceful paradise in this world, but only that we should not have to live among devils in the most perfect hell. From this, oh Lord, protect us.'