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On the Ruin of Britain

St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899

Azarias, also the son of Obed, spoke unto Asa, when he was returning from the slaughter …

Azarias, also the son of Obed,¹ spoke unto Asa, when he was returning from the slaughter of ten hundred thousand of the Ethiopian army, saying: The Lord is with you, whilst ye are with Him; and if ye seek Him, He will be found of you; and if ye leave Him, He will leave you. For if Jehoshaphat, while aiding an unjust king, is thus reproved by the prophet Jehu, son of Annanias, saying: If’ thou helpest a sinner or lovest him whom the Lord hateth, the anger of God on that account is upon thee, what shall be unto them who are bound in the fetters of their own crimes? The sins of these men, if we wish to fight in the Lord’s battle, we must hate, not their souls, as the Psalmist says: Ye who love the Lord, hate evil.

What did the afore-named Elijah, the chariot of Israel and horseman thereof, utter unto the son of Jehoshaphat, even Jehoram the murderer, who butchered his noble brothers, that he, a bastard, might reign in their stead. Thus saith the Lord God of thy father David: Because thou hast not walked in the way of Jehoshaphat thy father, and in the ways of Asa, King of Judah, and hast adulterously walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab, and hast killed thy brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat, better than thou, behold the Lord shall strike thee and thy sons with a great plague. A little later: And thou shalt have great sickness by weakness of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out with very infirmity, from day to day. And hear ye also how Zecharias, the son of Jehoiadah, the prophet, menaced Joash, King of Israel, when he abandoned the Lord, as ye do. He rose and said unto the people: Thus saith the Lord: Why do ye transgress the precepts of the Lord, and prosper not? Because ye have left the Lord, He will also leave you.

Notes

Azarias filius Obed. There seems to be no variation of reading, which induces us to conclude a slight lapse of memory on the part of Gildas. The LXX, in 2 Chron. xv, 2, have ᾿Ωδηδ or ᾿Αδάδ, the Vulgate and English, filius Oded, son of Oded, as the prophet’s name. There is an Azariah, son of Obed, in xxiii, 1, a “captain of hundred.”