The Sibyls were prophetesses which existed from the earliest times, many were pagan, some were
Jewish, and later some were also Christian.
"And a great river of blazing fire will flow from heaven, and will consume everything, land and ocean, shining seas, lakes and rivers, even into heaven and hell..." 2:196
"All at once, everything will melt together, and then disperse into the air..." 2:212
"And then everyone will pass through the blazing river of unquenchable flame, and the righteous will be saved, but the evil will be destroyed for all time..." 2:252
"But if you evil ones don't heed me, and love ungodliness, and hear this only with evil ears, there will be fire throughout the world. It is a great sign with sword and trumpet at the rising sun. The whole world will hear the powerful noise and blasting sound. He will scorch the entire earth, and annihilate the human race, the cities, rivers and oceans, all at once. He will use fire to reduce everything to a smoldering ash." 4:171-178 (This is a slightly different translation from the one below.)
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Sibylline Oracles, Book III-V, Rev. H. N. Bates, Macmillan Company, New York, 1918.
Book 3
49... and a holy king shall come 50 who shall have rule over the whole earth for all ages of the course of time. Then shall implacable wrath fall upon the men of Latium; three men shall ravage Rome with pitiable affliction; and all men shall perish beneath their own roof-tree, when the torrent of fire shall flow 55 down from heaven. Ah, wretched me, when shall that day come, and the judgement of the immortal God, the great king? Yet still be ye builded, ye citites, and all adorned with temples and theatres, with market squares and images of gold, silver and stone, that so ye may 60 come to the day of bitterness. For it shall come, when the smell of brimstone shall pass upon all men. ...
80 ... when God that dwellth in the heavens shall roll up the sky as a book is rolled up: and the whole firmament with its many signs shall fall upon the earth and the sea; and 85 then shall flow a ceaseless torrent of liquid fire, and shall burn up the earth and burn up the sea, and melt down the firmament of heaven, the days and the very creation, fusing them into one clear mass.
And no longer does one pay heed to the planetary spheres that laugh aloud, nor to night nor to 90 daybreak, nor to day following day, nor to spring and summer, autumn and winter. And then shall come forth the judgement of the great God, in the great age, when all these things come to pass. Ah, for the waters where go the ships, and for all the dry land, when that sun rises which shall not set again! 95 All things shall obey him when he returns to the world; therefore was he the first to know his own power.... 320 Woe to thee, land of Gog and Magog, in the midst of the rivers of Ethiopia: what a stream of blood shall flow out upon thee, and thou shalt be called among men the house of judgement, and thy land shall drink and be drenched with red blood....
368 and Europe then shall be blessed, the air fruitfull year after year, healthy, without frost and hail, bringing forth beasts 370 and birds and creeping things of the earth. Blessed shall the man and woman be who lives to see that time, as they are who dwell in the isles of the blest; for law and justice shall come forth from the starry heaven upon men, and with them wise concord, best of all gifts for mortals, and love and faith and hospitable ways; but lawlessness, 375 blame, envy anger and madness shall depart. Poverty and penury shall flee from men in those days, with murder and accursed strife and grievous wrangling, thieft by night and every ill. 538 and on all men together war and pestilence shall be laid: and God shall make the whole heavens as brass above, and send drought upon the whole earth, 540 and it shall be as iron. Then will men all lament sore for the failure of seedtime and ploughing; and He who made heaven and earth shall kindle grieous fire upon earth, and but a third part of all mankind shall be left....
[Egypt shall be destroyed] 618 Then shall they bend the naked knee to God the great king immortal on the fruitful earth, and all the works of men's hands shall fall in the flame of fire. And then shall God give joy to men; for the earth, the trees, 620 and the full flocks of sheep shall give their proper fruit for men, wine and honey and white milk, and corn which is the best of all gifts to mortals....
629 for He is God alone, and there is no other. Honour righteousness 630 and deal oppressively with no man; for this is the ever-living commands to wretched mortals. But be thou ware of the wrath of the great God, when the end, even pestilence, comes to all mankind, and they are brought low under the terror of judgement; and one king shall 635 take another and take away his land, and nation shall lay nation waste, and tyrants the people, and the captains shall flee into another land, and the world of men shall be changed, and a foreign rule shall lay waste all Hellas and drain the fruitful land of wealth, and they 640 shall come to strife one with another for gold and silver --love of grain shall be the evil shepherd of the cities-- in a strange land; and all shall be unburied, and the flesh of some shall vultures rend, and wild beasts of the field;
when this is come to pass, the terrible earth shall 645 swallow the remnants of the dead; it shall all be unplough, and unsown, proclaiming in its misery the pollution with which thousands are defiled . . . (in the text) 650 many seasons of revolving years bringing forth spears and shields, javelins and all manner of weapon: nor shall wood for bright fire be cut from the thicket. And then shall God send from the Sun a king, who shall make all the earth cease from ruinous war killing 655 some, and with some making a sure agreement. Nor shall he do this by his own counsel, but in obedience to the ordinances of the high God . . . (in the text)
670 ... Fiery swords shall fall from heaven on the earth: great flashing torches, flaming through the midst of them; and the earth, mother of all things, shall be 675 shaken in those days by the hand of the Immortal, and the fishes of the sea and all the beasts of earth and the myriad tribes of birds, and every soul of man and every sea shall shudder before the face of the Immortal, and there shall be great fear.
He shall break asunder the 680 craggy peaks of the mountains and the great hills, and a dark cloud shall overshadow all; and the high gullies in the lofty mountains shall be full of dead: and the rocks shall run with blood, and every torrent shall fill the plain with it. And all the strong built walls of 685 the enemy shall fall down, because they knew not the judgement of the great God, but ye did all rush to take up spears in your folly against the holy place. And God shall give judgement upon all, by war, and by sword, by fire and drenching rain; and brimstone shall fall 690 from heaven, with stones of hail great and grievous: and death shall overtake the four-footed beasts. And then shall they know the everliving God who judges thus; and through the width of the earth shall sound the wailing and mourning of perishing men; and all the 695 unholy shall be bathed in blood: the very earth shall drink the blood of the slain, and the beasts shall be glutted with their flesh. All these things did the great and eternal God bid me foretell; and this shall not lack fulfilment and consummation: enough that his mind has counselled it; for the spirit of God is in the world a spirit of truth.
But all the sons of the high God shall dwell peaceably round the temple, rejoicing in that which the creator, the 705 righteous sovereign judge shall give them. For he shall stand by them as a shelter in His greatness, as though He walled them in with a wall of flaming fire; they shall be at peace in their cities and lands. No hand of evil war shall stir against them, but the Immortal shall be 710 their champion, and the hand of the holy one....
749 the cities shall be full of good 750 things, and the fields with fatness; no sword shall come against the land, nor shout of war; nor shall the earth again be shaken, deeply groaning: no war no drought shall afflict the land, no dearth nor hail to spoil the crops, but deep peace over all the earth; king shall live 755 as friend to king to the bound [end] of the age, and the Immortal shall establish in the starry heaven one law for men over all the face of the earth for all the doings of hapless mortals. For he alone is God and there is 760 no other;
He too will burn up the might (race)of stubborn men.... serve the living God: keep from adultery, and lust which confounds the use of nature: bring up thine own children and slay them not; for the Immortal will be wroth with him that sins in these things.
And then He shall raise up His kingdom forever over all men, He who once gave the holy law to the godly, to 770 whom He promised to open the earth and the world and the gates of the blessed with all joys, with a deathless mind everlasting joy. And from all the earth men shall bring frankinsense to the temple of the high God: and there shall be no other temple among men, to be told among those that are yet unborn, save that which God gave to the faithful to honour; ... All the paths of the plain, and the rough place of the hills, and the lofty mountains, and the wild waves of the sea shall be made easy for 780 traveller and sailor in those days; for perfect peace and plenty cometh on the earth: and the prophets of the hig God shall take away the sword, for they are the judges of men and their righteous kings; and well gotten wealth will abound among men: for this is the judgement of the great God, and His rule.
785 Rejoice, O daughter, and be glad: for He that made heaven and earth hath given thee joy; and He shall dwell in thee, and thou shalt have everlasting light. ...
796 I will tell thee an unerring sign, whereby to know when the end of all things shall come upon earth. When by night in the starry heaven swords are seen westward and eastward, then shall a dust fall from heaven over all 800 the earth the light of the sun shall fail in mid course, and suddenly the moon-rays shall out and come upon the earth; there shall be a sign of dripping of blood from the rocks; and in a cloud 805 ye shall see a warring of footmen and horse, like a hunting of beasts, in the likeness of a mist; this is the end of war (or, of all things) which God who dwells in heaven is bringing to pass; all must do sacrifice to the great king. ...
809 These things do I shew forth ... 815 ... but when all these things come to pass, then shall ye remember me, and none shall call me distraught, who am a prophetess of the high God.
Book 4
Hear, ye people of proud Asia and Europe, all the true prophecies which I shall utter with honeyed mouth from our shrine; no oracular voice am I of false Phoebus, whom vain men called a god, and falsely reckoned as a 5 seer, but of the great God, not fashioned by hands of men in the likeness of dumb idols graven in stone. ...
It is He who has smitten through my mind with a scourge, that I should declare unerringly to men all that now is and shall be hereafter 20 from the first generation [age or period] to the tenth; for He shall try every word as He brings it to pass. but thou, O people, give ear in all things to the Sibyl, as she pours forth the stream of truth from holy lips. 25 Happy amon men shall they be on earth who love to bless the great God before taking food and drink, trusting in the way of godliness; ...
40 ... But when the judgement of the world and of mortals shall come which God shall make, judging the godly and ungodly alike, then shall he send the godless away into darkness [and then shall they know what impiety they have done], but the godly 45 shall continue upon the grain-giving earth, and God will give them breath and life and grace....
55 ... there shall be dark night at the midnoon of day; stars shall fall from heaven, and the orb of the moon, and the earth shall be shaken with the great noise of a great earthquake, and lay low many cities and works of men, and islands shall rise out of the depths of 60 the sea.
119 and then shall a great king 120 from Italy flee away like a deserter, unseen, unheard of, beyond the ford of the Euphrates, after he has polluted his hands with the hateful murder of his mother, doing the deed with a wicked hand. ...
129 But when from a cleft in the earth, in the land of Italy, 130 a flame of fire shoots out its light to the broad heaven, to burn up many cities and slay their men, and a great cloud of fiery ashes shall fill the air, and sparks fiery red shall fall from heaven, then should men know the wrath 135 of the God of heaven, because they destroyed the blameless people of the godly. Then shall come to the west the strife of war stirred up, and the exiled man of Rome, lifting up a mighty sword, crossing the Euphrates with many tens of thousands.
153 But when the faith of godliness has perished from among men, and righteousness is no more seen in the 155 world . . . and living in unholy deeds they deal violently, doing evil with presumption, and none takes account of the godly, but in their great folly and unwisdom they destroy them all, rejoicing in violence, staining their hands in blood; then shall they know that 160 God is no longer merciful, but that gnashing his teeth in anger He will destroy the whole race of men at once with a great burning. ...
170 ... But if ye will not harken to me in your folly, but love impiety and give no good hearing to all these things, there shall be a fire over the whole earth and a great sign of a sword with a trumpet, at the rising of the sun: and all the earth shall hear loud wailing and 175 a mighty noise. It shall burn up the whole earth and destroy the whole race of men, all cities and rivers, with the sea: and it shall consume all things, and they shall be dust of fire.
But when all is turned to dust and ashes, and God 180 who kindled it shall put to sleep the mighty fire, God Himself shall clothe the bones and ashes again in human shape, and remake men as they were before. ...
189 But all that are godly, they shall live again on the earth, and 190 God shall give them breath and life and grace, even to the godly; and all shall then look upon themselves, beholding the sweet light of a sun that never sets; most blessed shall he be who shall live to see that time.
Book 5
"... 72 Thou shalt no more have a part among the blessed: fallen from the stars, thou shalt not ascend into heaven." These things did God bid me proclaim to Egypt, against the last time when men shall be utterly evil. 75 ... 93 [Greece] ... for the Persian shall come to thy land like hail, and destroy thy land and the men that devise evil, with blood and 95 death, . . . a mighty foe of barbarous mind, a man of blood, raging wildly round they wonderous alters, consuming in a flood, like the sand of the sea, hastening destruction upon thee; and then, thou city of weath, thou shalt have great sorrow. All Asia shall fall on the ground and lament for the gifts of beauty from thee wherewith she rejoiced to crown hereself.
106 But when he has reached the height of strength and grim boldness, he shall go on to intend the devastation of the city of the blessed. And then a king sent from God against him 110 shall destroy every great 110 monarch and all mighty men: and so shall justice be done upon men by the immortal. 155 But when after the fourth year a great star shines, which shall of itself destroy the whole earth . . . and from heaven a great star shall fall on the dread ocean 160 and burn up the sea, with Babylon itself and the land of Italy, by reason of which many of the Hebrews perished, holy and faithful, and the people of truth.
206 Be afraid, ye Indians and high-hearted Ethiopians: for when the fiery wheel of the eliptic (?) . . . (elipis in the text) and Capricorn . . . (in text) and Tarus among the Twins encircles the mid-heaven, when the Virgin ascending and the Sun 210 fastening the girdle around his forehead dominates the whole firmament; there shall be a great conflagration from the sky, falling on the earth; and in the warring stars there shall be a new portent, so that the whole land of Ethiopia shall perish in fire and groaning.
256-259 And one chief man shall come again from the sky, who stretched forth his hands upon the fruitful tree, the best of the Hebrews, who once shall stay the sun in its course, calling upon it with fair speech and holy lips....
269 the righteous who in a little 270 oppression endured hardness shall have prosperity greater and fairer than before: but the wicked who raised their voice to heaven in lawlessness shall cease from speaking to one another, and hide themselves, until the world be changed. A rain of burning fire 275 shall fall from the clouds: men shall no more reap fair fruit from the earth; all shall be unsown, unploughed, till men take knowledge of Him who governs all things, the immortal eternal God, and no longer pay honour to things that die, nor to dogs and vultures, such as Egypt taught them 280 to worship with foolish mouths and vain lips. Only the holy land of the godly shall bring forth all her fruit, honey dripping from a rock, and from the fountain ambrosial milk shall flow for all the righteous; for they set their hope on one God, the Father, who alone is 285 above all gods, and great was their piety and faith....
298 And then in His anger the immortal God who dwells on high shall hurl from the sky a fiery bolt on the head of the unholy: and summer shall change to winter in 300 that day. And then great woe shall befall mortal men: for He that thunders from on high shall destroy all the shameless, with thunderings and lightnings and burning thunderbolts upon his enemies, and shall make an end of them for their ungodliness, so that the corpses shall 305 lie on earth more countless than sand.
344 One day shall the voice of God be heard from above 345 throughout the broad heaven as a peal of thunder. The rays of the very sun shall fail, the moon shall not give her bright light, in the time of the end, when God shall rule. There shall be thick darkness over all the earth: 350 men shall be blind and evil beasts also(?) and there shall be wailing, that day shall continue for a long time, so that men shall know that God himself is king and his eye is over all things from heaven. Then will He have no pity on his enemies . . .
361 In the time of the end, and the last days of the moon, there shall be a mad, world wide war, treacherous and guileful. And from the ends of the earth shall come the man who slew his mother, a fugitive, pondering piercing counsels in his mind who shall subdue all the earth and 365 hold sway over all, and shall be more prudent in counsel than any man: and the city which caused him to fall, he shall capture at a blow. He shall slay many men and mighty kings, and burn them all with fire, as none had done before him, but those who crouch in fear he shall 370 raise up in his fury.
Great war shall come upon men from the west, and blood shall flow down the banks into the deep-eddying rivers. Wrath shall run in streams over the plain of Macedonia . . . (in the text) bringing help of allies to him from the west, but doom to the king. And 375 then a wintery blast shall blow over the earth, and the plain will be filled once more with evil war. For fire shall rain down from the floor of heaven upon men, and fire, water, thunderbolts, gloom, and murk in the sky, with wasting of war and a mist of slaughter to destroy all 380 kings together and all men of might. Then shall the pitious ruin of war thus have an end: none shall any more make war with sword and steel and spear; this shall be unlawful henceforth. And the people of wisdom, which was forsaken, shall have peace, having made trial 385 of calamity, that thereafter they might have joy. ...
414 For from the billowy clouds of heaven there came a 415 blessed one, a man holding a scepter in his hand, which God had delivered to him, and he triumphed nobly over all, and gave back to all the good that wealth which aforetime men had taken from them. He took and utterly burnt with fire the cities of them who before had done evil, and the city which God loved he made more 420 bright than the sun, moon and stars: her he adored, and . . . (in the text) he made a holy house in visible shape, pure and beautiful; of many furlongs he made it magnitude, with a great tower reaching to the very clouds, 425 visible to all men, that all the faithful and the righteous might behold the glory of eternal God, and the shape of His desire. The the east and the west sang of the honour of God: for then there are no more (terrors) for hapless mortals, no adultery nor lawless lust for boys, 430 no murder nor noise of war, no contention save in righteousness. It is the last time of the saints, when God who thunders from on high, founder of the great temple, brings these things to pass....
471 The sea shall be filled with evil things from the rivers, and shall be red with the flesh and blood of the unwise. Then there shall be such a dearth of men in the world that a man 475 could count up both men and women.... There shall 480 be a gloom of dread darkness over the broad sky, and a thick darkness shall once more cover the recesses of the earth: but then the light of God shall give guidance to the good, to all who sang his praises....
512 I beheld the menace of the burning sun among the stars, and the dread wrath of the moon, in her bright shining; the stars were in travail with warfare, and God 515 gave the word for battle. Over against the sun, great flames made combat, and the horned whirling of the moon was changed; the Day-Star went into battle, mounting on the back of the Lion: Capricorn smote the neck-sinew of the risen Bull: and the Bull took 520 from Capricorn his day of return; and Orion put to flight the Yoke, it could not abide him; the Virgin changed the fate of the Twins, in the Ram: the Pleiad shone no more: the Dragon refused the Girdle; the Fishes swam up beneath the girdle of the Lion; Cancer 525 stayed not in his place, for fear of Orion; the Scorpion crept under the tail of the Lion, and the Dog slipped away from the flaming of the Sun; Aquarius was burnt up by the strength of the mighty Shiner. Heaven itself arose, and shook off the warring host; and cast them 530 headlong in its wrath to the ground. And they, swiftly smitten down upon the waters of Ocean, set the whole earth on fire; and the sky stood bare of the stars.-------------------------------
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