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Revelation 8

“That man was singing: 'Deliver me, O Lord, from the unrighteous man!' His voice is in my ears like the sound of two stones struck together. His heart calls to me as if with three voices. The first says: 'I want to have my will in my own control, to sleep and to rise and to talk of pleasant things. I shall give to nature what it craves. I want money in my purse, soft clothes on my back. When I get these and similar things, I count them a greater happiness than all other gifts and the spiritual virtues of the soul.'

His second voice says: 'Death is not too hard, and the judgment is not so severe as is written; harsh threats are made as a warning, but mild punishments are given out of mercy. Therefore, so long as I can have my will in the present, let my soul make its passage as best it can in the future.'
The third voice says: 'God would not have redeemed us, if he had not wanted to give us heavenly things, nor would he have suffered, if he had not wanted to bring us back to our fatherland. Indeed, why did he suffer? Or who compelled him to suffer? Of course, I do not understand heavenly things except by hearsay, and I do not know for sure whether I should trust the Scriptures. If I could only have my will, I would have it instead of the heavenly kingdom.' You can see what that man's will is like and why his voice is like the sound of stones in my ears.
But, o friend, I answer your first voice: Your way does not tend toward heaven, nor is the passion of my love to your taste. Therefore hell lies open for you, and, because you love the low things of the earth, you will go to the regions below. I answer your second voice: Son, death will be hard for you, judgment unbearable, and flight impossible, unless you mend your ways. I tell your third voice: Brother, I did all my works out of love in order that you might become like me and so that, after having been turned away from me, you might return to me. But now my works are dead in you, my words are burdensome, and my way is neglected. What awaits you, therefore, is the torment and company of demons, because you turn your back on me, you trample underfoot the signs of my humility, and you do not consider how I stood on the cross in your sight and for your sake.
I stood there in three ways for your sake. First as a man, whose eye a dagger would penetrate; second, as a man whose heart would be pierced by a sword; third, as a man whose every limb would shake with the pain of pressing affliction. My passion indeed was more bitter to me than a puncture in the eye; yet I suffered it out of love. My mother's sorrow moved my heart more than my own, yet I bore it. All my inner and outer parts, too, shook for a long time from pressing pain and suffering, yet I did not give up nor retreat. Thus I stood in your sight, but you forget and neglect and scorn it all. You will therefore be thrust away like an abortion and a menstrual cloth.”

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