The Gospel of Barnabas - chapter 68

Sacred-Texts Islam
  

68.

'Thou askest me to tell thee what God will give us in paradise. Verily I say unto you, that those who think of the wages love not the master. A shepherd who hath a flock of sheep, when he seeth the wolf coming, prepareth to defend them; contrariwise, the hireling when he seeth the wolf leaveth the sheep and fleeth. As God liveth, in whose presence I stand, if the God of our fathers were your God ye would not have thought of saying: "What will God give me?" But ye would have said, as did David his prophet: "What shall I give unto God for all that he hath given unto me?"

'I will speak to you by a parable that ye may understand. There was a king who found by the wayside a man stripped by thieves, who had wounded him unto death. And he had compassion on him, and commanded his slaves to bear that man to the city and tend him; and this they did with all diligence. And the king conceived a great love for the sick man, so that he gave him his own daughter in marriage, and made him his heir. Now assuredly this king was most merciful; but the man beat the slaves, despised the medicines, abused his wife, spake evil of the king, and caused his vassals to rebel against him. And when the king required any service, he was wont to say: "What will the king give me as reward?" Now when the king heard this, what did he do to so impious a man?'

They all replied: 'Woe to him, for the king deprived him of all, and cruelly punished him.' Then said Jesus: 'O priests, and scribes, and Pharisees, and thou high-priest that hearest my voice, I proclaim to you what God hath said to you by his prophet Isaiah: "I have nourished slaves and exalted them, but they have despised me." 'The king is our God, who found Israel in this world full of miseries, and gave him therefore to his servants Joseph, Moses and Aaron, who tended him. And our God conceived such love for him that for the sake of the people of Israel he smote Egypt, drowned Pharaoh, and discomfited an hundred and twenty kings of the Canaanites and Madianites; he gave him his laws, making him heir of all that [land] wherein our people dwelleth.

'But how doth Israel bear himself? How many prophets hath he slain; how many prophecies hath he contaminated; how hath he violated the law of God: how many for that cause have departed from God and gone to serve idols, through your offence, O priests! And how do ye dishonor God with your manner of life! And now ye ask me: "What will God give us in paradise?" Ye ought to have asked me: What will be the punishment that God will give you in hell; and then what ye ought to do for true penitence in order that God may have mercy on you: for this I can tell you, and to this end am I sent to you.'