Zechariah 10:1

Let us not, therefore, know God by halves or make his lovingkindness an excuse for our indolence; for this, his thunders, for this, his lightnings—that his goodness may not be held in despite. He who causes the sun to rise also strikes people with blindness. He who sends the rain also causes the rain of fire. By the one he manifests his goodness; by the other, his severity. For the one let us love him, for the other let us fear, that it may not be said also to us, “Or despise you the riches of his goodness and patience and longsuffering? Know you not that the mercy of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath.”

(Chapter X, Verses 1 onwards) Pray to the Lord for late rain, and the Lord will send snow and rain showers, and every one will have grass in the fields. For the idols spoke in vain, and the diviners saw falsehood, and the dreamers spoke in vain, offering false consolation. Therefore, they have been led astray like a flock without a shepherd. They will be afflicted because they have no shepherd. Pray to the Lord for timely, seasonal, and late rain. The Lord has made illusions and will give them winter rain and grass to each one in the field. The ones who spoke have labored in vain, and the diviners have spoken false visions and false dreams, offering empty consolation. Therefore, they have withered like sheep and have been afflicted because there was no one to heal them. So the happiness that was promised in the time of the Maccabees, when the holy stones were raised up from the earth, and the Israelite nation grew greater, to the point that your virgins once again fed on the wheat of the Law, and were intoxicated with the wine of the Holy Spirit, is promised in part. However, because now is the last time of the prophets, and the world is approaching its end, and all that has been prophesied is awaiting its fulfillment: Ask the Lord to give you late rain: so that Christ, who was promised, may come and bestow upon you dews and snows, for which it is written in Hebrew Azizim (). And I do not know what they wanted, but perhaps they wanted to describe the greatness of grace and the admiration of gifts by the name of fantasy. Therefore, the Lord who makes snow and dryness for all the earth will be watered by the rain of the gospel preaching: He will give rain to the believers, and all things will be filled with abundance, so that after the nations have believed in Christ, they may understand that which they worshipped before is vain. Whether Israel itself understands, which once deceived, was held by the errors of idolatry, in vain it worshipped statues, and heard lies of the divine, and acquiesced in dreams, which Scripture commands not to believe (Deut. XIII). And for this reason they were led like a flock into captivity, and afflicted without the shepherd God, because they did not have knowledge of the Law. This whole passage is obscure and doubtful, and the reader must forgive us if in those things that are ambiguous, we proceed with a hesitant step. However, according to spiritual understanding, we can say that believers in Christ are encouraged by the Lord to ask for the latter rain at the end of the world, when the fullness of grace is to be given, and every herb will grow in its own field, so that they may say: The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want; he has set me in a place of pasture, he has nourished me on the waters of refreshment (Ps. 23:1-2). For all idols, both divine and dreamers, have spoken in vain and provided empty consolation. Those who speak about heretics, who do not understand the name Christian, nor about whom they speak, nor of whom they affirm, and they attend to erroneous spirits and the teachers of demons speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared (I Tim. IV): so that they are not led astray by the consolations of those who promise empty things, and for this reason they are handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (I Cor. V), and taken captive by the king of Babylon, and afflicted, because they do not have Christ as their shepherd, whom they falsely promise to themselves under a fake name.