I am a peasant, and in peace only will my land bear fruit. War comes trampling across my fields. No war for me, I am against it.
[Savagely] Shame upon you! May you rot amid your fields and be choked with your fruits! Cursed be he whose courage is measured by his gains, and cursed be he who values his own pitiful life more than the welfare of his country! Israel is our land for tillage. We will manure it with our blood. Are we not happy, brothers, to die for the one God?
The Peasant
Die, then, and let me live. I love the land. This, too, is God’s, and he has given it to me for my own.
Baruch
Nothing is given to us for our own. We hold everything in trust from the living God, and must restore everything when the call comes. Now has the call sounded; let us hearken to it gladly. The signs are fulfilled. Where are they who should reveal his words? Where are they who disclose his spirit, who can spur on the slothful and make the deaf hear? Where are the priests, and where the prophets? Why are their voices silent at this hour in Jerusalem?
Voices
Yes.—The prophets.—Where are the priests?
Baruch