And when those kings are shaken, the souls of the Jews, called "valleys," because of the contrast of their wretchedness with their former exaltation, bewailing the passing of (406) the aforesaid glory, will melt like wax before the fire, and be as water rushing down a chasm, through the multitude of those that fall from bad to worse. And all this it says will come to pass because of the sin of the house of Jacob, and the transgression of the house of Israel. And it goes on to describe this sin and transgression, "They that defile judgment and pervert all that is right, who build Sion with blood and Jerusalem with unrighteousness." With blood! Yes, this was the cause of their final misery, for that they pronounced the impious curse upon themselves, saying, (b) "His blood be on us and on our children." Therefore, it says this, "Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a storehouse of fruit," a prophecy which was only actually fulfilled after the impious treatment of our Saviour. For from that time to this utter desolation has possessed the land; their once famous Mount Sion, instead of being, as once it was, the centre of study and education based on the divine prophecies, which the children of the (c) Hebrews of old, their godly prophets, priests and national teachers loved to interpret, is a Roman farm like the rest of the country, yea, with my own eyes I have seen the bulls plowing there, and the sacred site sown with seed. And Jerusalem itself is become but a storehouse of its fruit of old days now destroyed, or better, as the Hebrew has it, a stone-quarry.