Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.
And he will be for a holy place: but for a stone of falling and a rock of trouble to the two houses of Israel, and to the men of Jerusalem, for a net in which they may be taken.
And Simeon gave them his blessing and said to Mary, his mother, See, this child will be the cause of the downfall and the lifting up of great numbers of people in Israel, and he will be a sign against which hard words will be said;
Because it is said in the Writings, See, I am placing a keystone in Zion, of great and special value; and the man who has faith in him will not be put to shame.
And the value is for you who have faith; but it is said for those without faith, The very stone which the builders put on one side, was made the chief stone of the building;
And in their desire for profit they will come to you with words of deceit, like traders doing business in souls: whose punishment has been ready for a long time and their destruction is watching for them.
For certain men have come among you secretly, marked out before in the holy Writings for this evil fate, men without the fear of God, turning his grace into an unclean thing, and false to our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.