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having suffered things worthy of pity and mercy. 14.279 Just as a garment soiled in blood is not clean, so you also will not be clean. Because you destroyed my land and killed my people, you shall not remain for all time. Still these are parts of a lament for the ruler of Babylon and his affairs. For since Lucifer, who fell from heaven, said in his heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will be like the Most High, in order to show how far he who is defiled in all impurity and bloodshed is from likeness to the Holy One, he is compared to a garment; insomuch as, by its own nature, it was made for the adornment of a man, but because it was soiled with blood, it could no longer be accepted for human use. From this it is clear that the evil one does not have uncleanness in his creation, but because he was soiled with blood, destroying the land of the Lord and killing the people through sin. Already elsewhere we have known human nature to be compared to a garment by the Prophet himself, saying to those grown old through wickedness: Behold, you all will grow old like a garment, and a moth will devour you. Terrible is the threat, that he will not even be clean later on. For he who is soiled in some sin loses his present cleanliness, but is not deprived of the cleansing hoped for in the future through repentance. But here the decision is absolute, that he will not even be clean later on, since he is soiled in the blood of the people of God, whom he put to death through disobedience, dragging them into wickedness. 14.280 For perhaps, before man was created, some place of repentance was also left for the devil, and his pride (even if it was an older disease) could nevertheless have been healed through repentance by one who had atoned for himself, restoring him to his original state. But from the time of the creation of the world and the planting of paradise and man in it and the commandment of God and the envy of the devil and the murder of the one who was honored, the place of repentance was also closed to him. For if Esau found no place for repentance, having sold his birthright, what place of repentance is left for the one who killed the first-formed man and through him brought in death? They say also that the stain on a garment that comes from human gore can in no way be washed out, but that the alteration, once it has occurred from the dyeing in blood, grows old with it; nor is it possible, then, for that one, having put away the stain from the blood, to become clean. But observe the word emphatically representing the filth from the bloodshed. For he did not say "dyed in blood" but "soiled," to show him wallowing in the murder of those being slain. This one destroyed the land of God and has slain his people. Nebuchadnezzar, then, laid waste the land, cutting down its fruit-bearing plants, delivering villages to the destruction of fire; he also killed some of the people of Israel with the sword, and led others captive to Babylon. And now also the one mystically named king of Babylon is the ruler of this world. For one might fittingly also call the confusion of this world Babylon; for he made the people of God captive, changing them from life to death; and he laid waste the land, corrupting the flesh of each one through sin, as it is written, that "All flesh had corrupted its way." 14.281 Evil seed, prepare your children to be slaughtered for the sins of your father, that they may not rise up and fill the earth with cities. And I will rise up against them, says the Lord of Sabaoth, and I will destroy their name and remnant and seed. Not only will he himself not be clean, but also the succession of the evil one will be destroyed with him through the goodness of the philanthropic God, who allows the destruction of the children, not so much of carnal procreation, as of the works accomplished from an evil disposition. Evil seed. Since he was not the father of wickedness, but from