LXX. De wendacio.

LXX. De wendacio.

For falsehood does not rejoice in the truth, but rather exaggerates what is not, and cannot be, doing so with pride and unjust joy. No one confesses the truth, but speaks in deceitful words that no one can see, and this is also against God and against His saints, in whom God works many miracles and strives to do good. This indeed is a cruel fault; for what I desire in carnal cravings is human, but what follows from lying is beyond humanity. For liars entangle themselves in lies just as a snake hides in its den. Therefore, they bend away from happiness and from the joyful life that is found at the gates of the daughter of Zion, because they follow the works of the Devil and reject the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Liars, through the exaltation of deceit, make themselves like the hills of the world, and thus they reign with the wise and the rich of this age, but they will ultimately be counted as nothing. These things have been said about the souls of the repentant, to be purified and saved, and they are faithful; let the faithful pay attention to these and keep them in mind as good knowledge. And I saw other spirits from that multitude, who were shouting loudly against the army of God, saying: 'Who are you, and where do you come from, since you do not want anyone to be like you?' At all times, we will wear you down and take away your clarity, and so our clarity will be much greater than yours. And they show contention to these people, and they urge them to be contentious. On the punishment of contention. And I saw a well of great depth, in which there was a very dark and fiery cloud, and around which a strong and fiery wind was blowing. In this mist and in this wind, there were horrible worms of a dreadful form. But the souls that had completed their contention through their works in their bodies were tormented in those flames, so that they fell from this wind into that pit, and from that same pit they ascended into this wind, and they endured the afflictions of those same worms. But those who had engaged in contentious actions during their lives faced these punishments without the penalties of that pit, because they did not fall into it. For the souls that lived contentiously while in their bodies and inflicted many burdens on others through this, were tormented in this dark and fiery mist. And because they had completed the same contention with wicked deeds, they were suffering in this pit of the worst fire. But because of their own impiety, which they had shown while contending with others, they were burned in this fiery wind. And because of the confusion they had caused by arguing with others through wicked deeds, they fell back into the same pit. And since they had afflicted them with insults, they returned again to impiety; therefore, even now they were reverting from the torments of the pit to the torments of the same wind. And because they had also been bold in their contention, they became like the worms of the fires that had been foretold. But those who contended with words and not with deeds, since they had not completed the contention through their actions, did not have the penalties of that pit, even though they felt the other afflictions of contention. And through the living Spirit, I saw and understood these things. And again, from the living light, I heard a voice saying to me: "These things that you see are true."