The Ninevites' repentance as a model, and the uselessness of hoarded wealth in famine

And for this reason the God-inspired word preserved their repentance in writing as a common teaching for life. The old man among them mourned, and tore and scattered his gray hair. The young man, in his prime, wailed all the more violently. The poor man groaned. The rich man, forgetting his luxury, practiced hardship like a man of self-control. Their king turned his splendor and glory into shame. He laid aside his crown and poured dust over his head. He threw off his purple robe and put on sackcloth instead. He left his high and lofty throne and was dragged pitiably along the ground. Abandoning his private royal comfort, he mourned together with the people. He became one of the many when he saw the common Master of all angry. This is the mindset of sensitive servants. Such is the repentance of those entangled in sins. But we carry out sin intensely, and carelessly and idly we take up the repentance. Who has prayed and shed a tear, so as to receive rain and timely drops? Who, wiping away sins in imitation of the blessed David, has wet his bed with lamentations? Who has washed the feet of strangers and rinsed off the dust of their journey, so as to move God at the right time, seeking release from the drought? Who has fed a child bereft of its father, so that now God may feed our crops, which are being battered like an orphan by the violence of the winds? Who has cared for a widow afflicted by the hardships of life, so that now the necessary food may be measured out to us? Tear up the unjust contract, so that in this way the sin may be dissolved. Erase the record of the heaviest interest, so that the earth may give birth to its usual produce. For while bronze and gold, things sterile by nature, are producing unnaturally, the earth that gives birth according to nature becomes barren, and has been condemned to fruitlessness for the punishment of its inhabitants. Let those who honor greed, then, those who gather wealth to excess, show what the power of their hoarded things is, or what the benefit is, if God in anger prolongs the punishment further. Those who heap up gold will perhaps become paler than the gold itself, unless they have bread—the bread that until yesterday and the day before was despised because of the ready abundance at hand. Suppose there is no one selling, and no grain in the storehouses: what is the use of the most oppressive money-bags? Tell me. Will you not be buried with them? Is not gold earth? Will not useless clay lie beside clay, the body? You acquired everything, and you do not have the one necessary thing: the power to feed yourself. With all your wealth you have not produced a single cloud. Devise a channel for a few drops. Urge the earth to bear fruit. Loose the disaster from your proud and swaggering wealth. Perhaps you will call upon one of the devout, so that by his prayers, like Elijah the Tishbite, he may grant you relief from these terrors—a man without possessions, pale, barefoot, without house, without hearth, without resources, covered by a single tunic, as Elijah was by his sheepskin, having prayer as his constant companion and self-control as his housemate. And if you obtain help from such a man when you ask, will you not soon laugh at your many-cared-for possessions? Will you not spit upon gold? Will you not throw away silver like dung—silver which you formerly called all-powerful and dearest, but which you have now recognized as a helpless ally in time of need? For your sake he also condemned this disaster, since you had and did not give; since you passed by the hungry; since you did not turn toward those who were weeping; since you were honored and did not show mercy.