Chapters 64-65 of the book of John ben Kathryn are offered here because of the common belief that somehow America is in biblical prophecy as some saviour of Israel. This is not an anti-American site, but it is necessary to proclaim the word of the LORD against America for its deceptions and vanities. We start here with chapter 64 because the prophecy begins about midway through it. It is chapter 65, however, that contains the most succinct prophecy against America. The complete book of John ben Kathryn can be found on this site here: Book of ben Kathryn. 

Chapter

64

COME to reason, saith the LORD. O house of Israel, Come gather your wits, and consider the LORD your God, that he is a mighty shield and an everlasting hero. Consider what hath transpired unto you for so long. If the LORD bring upon you sore travail, a scattering, and a chopfallen countenance, if I can bring upon you evil cannot I bring upon you all the good and blessings that I swear to bring upon you? Just repent, turn from your hard hearts, and believe in the LORD.

   If ye will not, but if ye remain stubborn, and pride yourselves in your stiff necks, behold, I warn unto you of the fox’s coming. Surely, he cometh to your tender vines. Doth the fox live within a vineyard or outside of the vineyard?— in the unkempt lands, in the unfurrowed lands the fox doth make his home. It is a brutish place where man stumbleth and where no foot is sure but the fox’s. The men of those places are brutish, and their minds not cunning. Their counsel is from stocks, and they seek counsel of vain statutes. They make themselves gods in order to sanctify the counsel of their own conceit.

   Forasmuch as ye have sought the counsel of the American, ye have let down the fence and nurtured the fox. Hearken, Israel, if the land be the eye, is Israel not blind without the apple? Nevertheless, O ye sons of Aaron, ye minister only at the urging of the nations. Ye build and cultivate and cause to return fallow the desolate heritages which I made fertile; and no man counseleth the LORD’s part. America hath urged thee, O Israel, but mine hand hath forebearn that I should not let it be built. Why is this so?

   Even because the behest of the foolish is vanity, foolishness of a people consumed with their own imaginations. Your sins and hard hearts remain. Therefore fear constricteth your heart; it constricteth your borders. Your tent is howled upon and fluttered by mighty winds; and ye seek the counsel of a merchant’s passing caravan. Yet again, ye will not seek the counsel of the LORD.

   The bullock and the horse shall tread in blood— the bull behind the plow and the horse before the cart. Ye shall sow and reap, and no grain shall be clean of blood. Ye shall thresh with weapons and gather with coffins. Languish and lament shall stir your bards’ tongues. The banker shall exchange with blood; and the builder and the stone mason shall hew with implements and fend themselves with them as weapons, until ye vomit the land from your souls because of its abhorrence; because blood and iniquity hath become abomination before you; and ye can feign tolerance no more, even because you have become detestable by reason of your unbelief.

   Until ye acknowledge again the LORD your Redeemer shall this come betimes upon you; and the LORD shall take you away from the land wherein ye dwell. Are there not many, many more sons of Isaac in the nations that I can bring? For your land was neither womb nor breast. Anguish was the womb that brought you forth to your land, and despair your pap. The German was your midwife; America your wet-nurse.  What are they before the LORD of hosts?— even the instruments of a dreadful God.

   For all mine hand hath made this: sowing and harvest, springtime and summer, flood and winter. I declared with laws the bounds of righteousness, and I spoke by faith the ordinances of holy things; and man corrupteth the way thereof. From start to finish, seed time and threshing, man’s desires are natural and primitive. There is none who hath declared righteousness before me; there is none who executeth judgment. After the similitude of beasts and man made he is gods; out of the vanity of his mind he hath broken my precepts. I am the LORD. I cannot be formed in stone, nor can man form me in his mind.

   There are no bounds placed upon the limit of man’s presumptions aside from my law, and there is no wisdom that proceedeth except from faith in me. Each corrupteth his neighbour. The land is soiled with blood; it poureth out from the mind. It defileth the land. And why doth each man slip thereon?— even because his eyes burn with mischief against his fellow. He counseleth toleration that he may lay in wait for blood with him who delighteth in it. Judgment is brought hastily for nought, and for things of weight there is no counsel but wait, that ye can upset the measure, making the pim great and the talent small, the shekel justice, and the poor a prize. The orphan and the widow are considered for a write-off, and their deliverance is expedience.

   Come, saith the LORD, though your sins be a river crimson, I shall make them fragrant oil, clear and distilled. Though your hearts be hard, I shall make them soft and pliable, and your mind of understanding. Come, enquire of the LORD. Come, trust in me, saith the LORD, for no disaster cometh nigh unto me, and I shall not have fickle attention and passing feelings for thee, O Israel.

   O American that seeketh flesh, Thou seekest such wealth as that fadeth, and treasures that are of so much dung. Wherefore braggest thou, O Chaldean, over the Hebrew? Am I not the LORD that made them both, and that divided the Hebrew from thy river? Wherefore braggest thou Japheth over Shem? whose flesh is the same. Incline not unto the American, nor entreaty him with a wink that magnifieth thy flesh.

   The LORD is thy boast, O Judaea, and he is the name that setteth thy forehead apart and maketh it holy. A fire driveth away the fox, but today’s sour grape protecteth the vine for another season’s sweet harvest. Stay ye within the vineyard, for the LORD’s foot is surer than the fox, and his cunning is better than a lion and his grip unrelenting like a badger.

   Hearken attentively, for this is of the LORD: Thus saith the LORD, So do I make thy harvest a bitter one, and thy grape fit for the spitting out of it. Though I lift up thy skirt and offend America with thy nakedness, yet shall it be only for a season.

   But I lift up the skirt of America and until the end I shall make them a proverb unto all nations.  For I lift up their skirt to thee now, that thou mayest know what kind of lovers thy baseness hath taken to thee. 

   The nations do not consider, America doth not lay it to heart concerning my word. They shall say in that day “Israel is not worthy.” But the LORD shall answer them with a swift voice: Then it is not mercy. Hear now and pay heed, O giddy nation: Thou art wicked and yet I have not sent thy feet quickly to the dust. Thou art not worthy, yet thou hast tasted long of my mercy. Doth not the keeper of the king’s forest have mercy upon the tender sapling? Yet when the great oak is mighty but diseased and rotten, doth he not anon cut it down to make light for the sapling to grow?  How much quicker shall it be done when the king himself seeth the forest and declareth and commandeth straightway that it should be so ordered? Behold, I cut down a mighty oak so that a tender sapling can grow.

   In times of trouble shalt thou build, O Jerusalem, and thy array of battle a swaddling cloth. Thine enemies shall snarl, and yet shall thy labourers not fear their enemies, for I have enlarged thine house, and I have restored Edom as a bulwark, and I have replaced Moab as gates are replaced and as moats are redug; and they shall know I am with them.

   Hear ye the word of the LORD, O seed of Jacob: Thus saith the LORD your God, I have brought me down many a conqueror, and many an empire have I buried in the dust. Have I done this for my amusement, saith the LORD?  Or did not the wickedness and pride of those nations come before me? 

   Therefore thus saith the LORD, I pull the lobe and speak loudly: See how I disturb thee. Hearken, give attention and prepare for the day. America shall not deliver you, but I shall deliver them to convulsion, and they shall run when no one is chasing them. At a cough they shall be dissolusion. Out of one I shall make many, and the time of their passing they shall not see or consider.

   Their cities are as heaps of fall leaves, of passing decay that rotteth, should it be left long if it heapeth. They are the gathering of bright colours; but they are brittle, and water only causeth them to rot. There is no regeneration for a leaf cast from the branch. Fire and wind are the only solution; so shall I burn some in heaps, what man hath heapt; and so shall I scatter some that a congregation of them rot not the soil at the time of rain, and the watering of the labourer.

   Howl ye for the fine buildings; they shall come down slowly at their own hand, and with a yawn shall she depart from among nations, from being Queen of nations; for I have heard the cry of the black man and the red man wherewith they have cried unto me.

   So shall I do unto that mighty people, for their skirt is a filthy one, and their houses of prayer whitewashed pens, and the land is soiled with bloodguiltness. I shall give their lands quietly to others that they loath. As they openly cheated, so shall those that come after subtly steal. For merchants rule over them and they think my blessings are in wealth and usury.

   Woe unto that nation, for they kill and eat their children to sustain their old age. Their babies have no graves, but their cry cometh up unto me.

   As they bled their womb, so shall I bleed their heritage, and unto a mightier people will I give their land.

   They have removed life for convenience; I shall remove the convenience of life. I send them the bug. See a wonder: by a speck the Earth is destroyed; against the multitude of tininess can no army fight. The LORD hath spoken.

                                                           Chapter

65

THE burden of America. Speak unto that nation, unto America, speak woes, prepare thou to take up lamentations, for great doth she fancy herself amongst the nations. Yet I know ye are clay and iron, and money is in what you trust.

   O thou mighty land of the eagle, I shall make thee a land of the seagull, a place of nesting and thy shores as a mother’s apron unto thee, thou wilt not travel far from; thy wings clipped and not able to endure the flights of the ocean. The cormorant shall vex thee. The crane shall step on thine eggs. As none delighteth in the squawk of thy beak, so shall none care to stand under the path of thy flight. Thou makest noise and castest thou a shadow, but thou art no bird of prey; and the longer thou circlest the more they underneath feel thy waste, and sigh again at the cost of thine indecision. 

   Whom shalt thou deliver, and who trusteth in thee anymore?   Strip Israel of its armor, lay out her soldiers naked in the sun, yet shall I, even I, saith the LORD, smite their enemies at the day of their turning.

   And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that there shall be a howling at your shores and weepings upon your mountains; thy sorrows as the flow of thy great river Mississippi. The majesty of thy mountains shall be sackcloth, ashes the mantel of thy prairies.

   Forasmuch as thou sayest I bless thee because of thy wealth, so shall I make it plain that I curse thee, for thou makest merchandise of justice, and at the call for swift punishment thou brokerest law. Thou makest them bankrupt who defend themselves, and he who hath no money hath no advocate. Thou declarest the process and not the outcome to be justice. For a thing of nought thou lettest men be accused, and findest them guilty of suspicion because of the demands of the prudery of gainsayers and gainseekers. Seedy grandeur motivateth the arrogant, and for money thou wilt mull over a word to bring the innocent to book. The feet of thy constables are set to earn thee money, and the innocent and meek are ravished at the same time.

   Behold, I have seen it, and I will repay according to thy measure; according to the smirk of thy hauteur. Thou art without knowledge. Canst thou elect it, O ignorant nation? Thou desirest only auctioneers to rule thee, and the oratory of the tradesman is eloquence unto thee. They stand at thy gates, thy beautiful gates wherein entereth the wealth of Cathay, the fineries of Europe, West Indies goods, the weavings of Britain, the carvings of the Latins, and the gadgets of Japan. Hear them bark: “Goods for all! Burn incense to enterprise! Is she not clever! Fineries, silks, gold, oil, yea, rum and sugar of the islands, the tool and the craftsmen. . .and flesh for the lording over by success— is not God with us?”

   Therefore, saith the LORD, I shall send the piper, and he shall entrance thee from thy pulpit and lead thee from thy gates with a merry jig. Thou art foolish, O America. Thou shalt play them a tune and make them to follow thee. But thou knowest not where thou goest. The servant shall sit on the horse and play the pipe, and thy leaders shall hold the tail and dance.

   Everything ye call a conspiracy I will make a conspiracy unto you. Everyone’s home shall ye make a fortress and your neighbour shall be your tyrant. The world shall pick your wealth. For when ye try and defend yourselves, even your leaders shall pull at the horse’s tail and upset your defense.

   Thou hast made thy walls strong and thy gates a glittering with jewels, ears as unto pomegranates, eyes as unto rubies, and hearts as unto sapphires, cold and blue. Yet thy gates through which thou makest merchandise of the world shall be desolate. No man can bring them down. Hast thou not even magnified them unto God? Nevertheless, thou shalt return from thy jig, and there weep at the decay; in the cleft of thine elbow deep weeping; arms shall hide thine eyes, hide them from the desolation because the LORD caused them to decay; and the weeds thereupon shall embolden the predator and the small nation.

   How thou magnifiest thy law! Yet it is not as old even as a new family, and thine orchards have not been planted long enough to yield their first clean fruit. What say ye of Precedence? —shall it make bribery not bribery; and extortion, is it any different? How the complacent braggeth! How the wine vat bubbleth with languish! What is left after one purgeth the winepress of the pulp? Bitterness is left, as a heart that is sewn with salt. No more can a good thing grow, or a tender shoot reach for the sun.

   So is thy harvest, O foolish nation. I shall purge thy winepresses and lay bare thy vineyards. Long shall thy presses dry before a new sprig reacheth for the sun and a new vintner maketh wine in them from a new harvest.   

   Why seek ye such a companion, O my people, and why do ye rest assured in a people afar off? Their feet are quick, but their heel is weak.

   Why do ye walk the wayside with such a companion when I plainly set before you the end of his ways? He who maketh all the ways of justice, chancery; and the law becometh dubious and dispute, that he might give weight to his spleen and its whims— even he is an abomination to my soul. Even as such shall America persecute thy seed that sojourneth. With loophole shall she overlook their oppression. Without leaders shall each town throw stones at thee.

   Hear a gentle sound from afar? A subtle purr from America. They  make bold their purr; yet now at the rebuke of the LORD their conceit only causeth them to mull. In any consideration they give themselves the best, and wisdom is tortured in the marketplace for the merriment of fools. They offer no introspection, and no man doeth anything but vent. The moment passeth, the evening falleth, a gentle purr resumeth, and barely doth a belch recall the day’s excitement.

     Swiftly came entropy upon France, likewise upon Russia; so too upon China— the servant sat upon the horse and the princes walked on foot, the thing which I hate in mine heart, saith the LORD.  Though swiftly it came upon them, slowly shall it come upon you. As a creeping fog in the night shall it come, and ye shall not be delivered after three generations except by division.

   Thou art a wondrous flower, O America. Thy roots spread far, and it taketh much nourishment to maintain the beauty of thy petals. But when the ground is all roots, wherewith shall it be nourished? The great flower dieth and becometh the nourishment for seeds dropped by birds. The flowers that spring forth shall grow from thee. Thy flesh shall sustain five flowers and then they shall cast their seed and there shall be a garden.

   The LORD hath sworn in his wrath. He shall not relent. Thou thinkest thyself so new, so original; but doth he not see the same sons of flesh as thy fathers? As he waited upon the times of the Amorites, as he surveyed Sodom, as he endured Egypt, as he judged Rome, as he humbled the Ottomans, so hath he seen thy ways, O foolish nation.

   From beginning to end they have come before him. He lifted up thy skirt, but thou only saidst “I am now blind because of my lifted skirt and see not my nakedness.” Thou hast no knowledge, and thinkest that thou canst fool the Almighty?

   O people of glass! Thou knewest thy nakedness was revealed, thy shame seen of the world. Thou hast fooled no one but thyself. As thou wilt not hearken to thine ears so that thine eyes may be opened, so thou canst not fathom thy end hath come before me, saith the LORD.

   Why art thou also so blind, O Israel? —because thou trustest not in me, proclaimeth the LORD. What victories hast thou won? How hath America removed thine enemies from thy borders all these years? They make pretty their speech, but even the nations wince at its recital.

   Thou hast lost land; thou hast lost faith. Thou waitest like a fat child to be served of the nations, and they have only robbed thee, and now they hate thee. The same that delivereth thee from bondage art thou then in bondage to.

   When they had power they did not hearken unto my spirit, but burnt Japan with fire, which thing I commanded them not. I gave their secrets to others, and in fear did I give that generation life. Fear turned to foolishness, and foolishness turned to lies. For one tooth they took ten, for the lives of 1000 took they 100,000.

   Behold, saith the LORD, weepings and howlings unto thee. I declare not joy. I repay according to thy ways. Oh the howl of the great city upon the river River and the bareness of thy columns, for that day shall come, and thou shalt not punish the Ishmaelite.