Woe unto you, Chorazin! woe unto you, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Read Chapter 11
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Woe to thee, Coro Zain These four verses show us how dangerous it is to resist the divine graces, and not to make good use of those favourable opportunities which the divine Providence hath placed us in, of working our salvation and of improving ourselves in virtue and sanctity. (Witham)
Sack-cloth and ashes It was the custom for those who were in mourning, to be clothed with sack-cloth, and sit in ashes. (Menochius)
And He adds not Sodom with the others for nought, but to aggravate the charge against them. Yea, for it is a very great proof of wickedness, when not only of them that now are, but even of all those that ever were wicked, none are found so bad as they.
Thus elsewhere also He makes a comparison, condemning them by the Ninevites, and by the Queen of the south; there, however, it was by them that did right, here, even by them that sinned; a thing far more grievous. With this law of condemnation, Ezekiel too was acquainted: wherefore also he said to Jerusalem, You have justified your sisters in all your sins. Thus everywhere is He wont to linger in the Old Testament, as in a favored place. And not even at this does He stay His speech, but makes their fears yet more intense, by saying, that they should suffer things more grievous than Sodomites and Tyrians, so as by every means to gather them in, both by bewailing, and by alarming them.
So that you might understand that those who did not believe were evil not by nature, but by choice, He calls to mind Bethsaida, the city of Andrew, Peter, Philip and the sons of Zebedee. Evil does not come from nature, but from our own choice; for if it came from nature, these apostles too would have been evil.
