O Holy Spirit, behold how vile is my soul!
How fearfully she hides Thy fruit within herself, for fear of the Jews, for fear of the countless children of darkness, whom she has multiplied within herself from her marriage with the world.
She has borne countless wolves and foxes, and set them in her royal chambers, while Thy Son has nowhere to lay His head. And all of them seek to kill that which is born of the Spirit. Ah, accomplices of Herod! For they fear power and the true light! And they tremble most for their crowns who seized them and set them, bloodied, upon their own heads.
Flee, my soul, with your new fruit, with your only-begotten fruit, flee into Egypt, into a land yet darker than Israel. Behold, the countless slaves, whom you have brought forth within yourself from the seed of the world, raise the hunt against your only son, and seek to kill him.
But the eyes of the evildoers are darker than their crown, and in their blindness they do not recognize the infant of God. Therefore they will slaughter many infants, that they might slay your infant too.
I saw a shepherd chilled with cold beside a little fire. He took not his eyes from the fire, as though he would help it burn with the fire of his own eyes. And he shielded the fire with his hands from the cold winds, and blew upon it with his breath, that it might blaze up more strongly, that it might grow and withstand the winds, and warm him.
So from my heart rage the winds of evil desires, threatening the divine candle in you, to quench it. And so from my mind rage evil thoughts, to spit upon the only light in you, which prepares their destruction.
All that you, O soul, have multiplied in my mind and in my heart considers you not a mother but a stepmother, and there is no one in your loathsome brood to place a finger on your burning tongue and cool you. Now for the first time you have become a mother, for you have borne a son, who grows in obedience to you and to the Holy Spirit, and in tender parental love.
Do not lay upon his head, O bondwoman, the slavish cares of this world. He must grow in spiritual power and be about that which is his Father's. Behold, he comes as a flame, that will burn up your enemies, and give you light and warmth.
As an envoy he comes from a kingdom where you once reigned in maidenly purity and beauty. Do you not know your own son, O senseless soul?
As a herald he comes from the kingdom of light, where you too once shone with the shining of many suns, to call you back into that kingdom. Do you not recognize the voice of your own son, O deafened soul?
As a knight of freedom he comes from a kingdom of freedom, where you too once lived, knowing neither the fear nor the hunger of slaves — he comes to free you from the gross chains in which the grossness of the world has fettered you. Do you still hesitate to greet your liberator with cries of joy, O mute soul?
O Almighty Spirit, strengthen the saving infant in the cradle of my soul. And keep him from all the poisoned arrows that fly at him from above out of Israel and from below out of Egypt.