Many in the world shall stumble and fall because of Thy Son, O Lord, longer than time and more blessed than the generations of time.
The princes of the people will league themselves even with brigands against Christ the Most Holy, the priests with false witnesses, and the wise with the senseless.
O how majestic He is in His solitude and in the purity of His way!
The lawyers, who have spent a lifetime interpreting the law of God, have now risen up all with one accord, not to judge but to kill a man.
The leaders of the people, who bear the law written on Sinai down their breasts and on their belts and on their frontlets, have forgotten the several thousand years of their schooling in righteousness, and like hungry wolves they have rushed after the Man of peace and goodness, to tear Him apart.
The merchants have shut their shops and drawn their knives, to kill.
The elders, adorned outwardly with many memorials of God's miracles upon their people, but without a single one within, creep out from under their chimney-corners, to help with the killing.
The young men, who make merry when their elders embolden them to crime, have gone out with cudgels and stones, to carry out the murder before they sit down to the Passover and begin to glorify God.
The women too have risen up for blood, and have brought their children along, that the children also may help in a deed of the whole people.
Murderers and men of violence, who on other days steal fearfully through darkness and narrow ways, have now become leaders to leaders and princes to princes.
For the criminals in the dungeon the day of freedom has come, for they have become needful to the people, to teach them their craft, to teach them how a man is killed.
All the visitors, who came to the city for the feast, to bow down before Heaven and seek God, have turned their backs on the temple, and with their hosts and innkeepers they have rushed off, to seek the blood of the righteous one.
The priests have forgotten the temple and hurried out with their sacrificial knives, to save the people from God.
The lame and the crippled hold out their crutches, and the blind their beggars' bowls — their only weapon — to help kill the healer.
Thus a whole nation of sinners rises up with one accord, like grass, to kill God. And the knife, swung against God, slipped in its hand, and it struck itself in the heart.
Let me not fall, O Lord most dear!
Open the eyes of my soul, that I may see and learn from the fate of sinners. That my foot may not go after anyone who goes against Thee.
Lest somehow I lift a stone against Thee, and slay myself forever.