9
He said, "Go and tell this people: "'Listen hard, but you aren't going to get it;
look hard, but you won't catch on.'
Make these people blockheads,
with fingers in their ears and blindfolds on their eyes,
So they won't see a thing,
won't hear a word,
So they won't have a clue about what's going on
and, yes, so they won't turn around and be made whole."
11
Astonished, I said,
"And Master, how long is this to go on?"
He said, "Until the cities are emptied out,
not a soul left in the cities -
Houses empty of people,
countryside empty of people.
Until I, God, get rid of everyone, sending them off,
the land totally empty.
And even if some should survive, say a tenth,
the devastation will start up again.
The country will look like pine and oak forest
with every tree cut down -
Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps.
But there's a holy seed in those stumps."