The Nisibene Hymns - преподобный Ефрем Сирин |
 2. In revelation, Lord! It has been proclaimed, that lowly blood which Noah sprinkled, wholly restrained Your wrath for all generations; how much mightier then shall be the blood of Your Only Begotten, that the sprinkling of it should restrain our flood! For lo! It was but as mysteries of Him that those lowly sacrifices gained virtue, which Noah offered, and stayed by them Your wrath. Be propitiated by the gift upon my altar, and stay from me the deadly flood. So shall both Your signs bring deliverance, to me Your cross and to Noah Your bow! Your cross shall cleave the sea of waters; Your bow shall stay the flood of rain.
3. Lo! All the billows trouble me; and You have given more favour to the ark: for waves alone encompassed it, mounds and weapons and waves encircle me. It was unto You a storehouse of treasures, but I have been a storehouse of debts: it in Your love subdued the waves; I in Your wrath, am left desolate among the weapons; the flood bore it, the river threatens me. O Helmsman of that ark, be my pilot on the dry land! To it You gave rest in the haven of a mountain; to me give You rest also in the haven of my walls!
4. The Just One has chastened me abundantly, but it He loved even among the waves. For Noah overcame the waves of lust, which had drowned in his generation the sons of Seth. Because his flesh revolted against the daughters of Cain, his chariot rode on the surface of the waves. Because women defiled him not, he coupled the beasts, whereof in the ark he joined together, all pairs in the yoke of wedlock. The olive which with its oil gladdens the face, with its leaf gladdened their countenances: for me the river whereof to drink is wont to make joyful, lo! O Lord, by its flood it makes me mournful.
5. The foulness of my guilt Your righteousness has seen, and Your pure eyes abhor me. You have gathered the waters by the hand of the unclean, that You might make for me purification of my guilt; not that in them You might baptize and purify me, but that in them You might chasten me with fear. For the waves will stir up to prayer, which shall wash away my guilt. The sight of them which is full of repentance, has been to me a baptism. The sea, O Lord, which should have drowned me, in it let Your mercies drown my guilt. In the Red Sea You drowned bodies; in this sea drown my guilt instead of bodies!
6. An ark in Your mercy You prepared, that You might preserve in it all the remnants. That You should not desolate the earth in Your wrath, Your compassion made an earth of wood. You emptied them one into the other; You rendered them back one unto the other. But my lands have thrice been filled and emptied again; and now against me the waves rebel, to overwhelm the remnant that has escaped in me. In the ark You saved a remnant; save in me, O Lord, yea in me a leaven. The ark upon the mountain brought forth; let me in my lands bring forth my imprisoned ones!
7. O Lord, gladden in me the imprisoned ones of my fortresses, You Who gladdened those prisoners with the olive leaf! You sent healing by means of the dove to the sick ones that were drowning in every wave; it entered in and drove out all their pains. For the joy of it swallowed up their sorrow, and mourning vanished away in its consolation. And as the chief of a host gives heartening to the fugitives, so the dove disseminated courage among the forsaken. Their eyes tasted the sight of peace, and their mouth hasted to open in Your praise. As the olive leaf in the waves, save me, that You мая gladden in me the prisoners of my fortresses!
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