Chapter 44
I am the Creator and Lord of all things. I made the world and the world shuns me. I hear a sound in the world like that of a bumblebee gathering honey on the earth. When a bumblebee is flying and begins to land, it emits a buzzing sound. I hear a voice like that now buzzing in the world and saying: 'I do not care what comes after this.' Nowadays everyone is shouting: 'I do not care!' Indeed, humanity does not pay heed to or care about what I did for love by admonishing them through the prophets, by my own preaching and by my suffering for them. They do not care about what I did in my anger by correcting the wicked and disobedient. They see that they are mortal and that they are uncertain about death, but they do not care.
They hear and see the justice I inflicted on Pharaoh and on Sodom[1] because of sin, and that I inflict on other kings and princes, letting it come about daily through the sword and other woes. But it is as if they were blind to it all. Like bumblebees, they fly wherever they like. Indeed, sometimes they fly as if they were shooting upward, whenever they exalt themselves through pride, but they come back down quickly enough by reverting to their lustfulness and gluttony. They gather earthly honey for themselves by toiling and gathering for the needs of the body rather than for those of the soul, for earthly rather than eternal honor. They turn what is temporal into a punishment for themselves, what is useless into eternal torment. Hence, because of the prayers of my Mother, I will send my clear voice to these bumblebees, excepting my friends who are in the world only in body, and it will preach mercy. If they listen to it, they will be saved.
[1]. "On Pharaoh and on Sodom"; cf. Exodus 7-12; Genesis 19.