JOHN

Nay, it is not your law, but ye yourselves that I hate. For your hand lieth heavily on this people, and your well-being is its affliction.

AMASAI

That thou hast yet to prove, great prophet.

JOHN

Who are ye, ye men of worldly wisdom, that ye should look on the law as your special inheritance and possession? Here is an enslaved people crawling patiently on its belly beneath a scourge, oppressed by a heavy burden, and ye desire to tell it how it shall crawl.

AMASAI

Yea, because it must crawl somehow, great prophet.

JOHN

Ye think so. I say that it shall rise out of the dust.