Martin Luther

“ To sum up, dear princes and lords who have Jews under themselves: if my advice is not acceptable, you may find a better one, that all of us be relieved of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews and not become partakers before God of all the lies, slander, spitting, cursing of the raving Jews against the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, His mother, all Christians, all rulers and ourselves, as they freely and deliberately practice it. ”

“ Now what are we going to do with these rejected, condemned, Jewish people?
We should not suffer it after they are among us and we know about such lying, blaspheming and cursing among them, lest we become partakers of their lies, cursing, and blaspheming. We cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of God’s wrath (as the prophets say) , nor convert the Jews. We must practice great mercy with prayer and godliness that we might rescue a few from the flame and violent heat.
We are not permitted to take revenge. Revenge is around their neck a thousand times greater than we could wish them. ”

“ If God had not permitted the people of Jerusalem to be torn asunder and driven them from the land, but had let them keep it after as before, no one could convince them that they are not God’s chosen nation. ”

“ Yes, we have and hold them captive, as I would like to keep my rheumatism, furuncles and all other diseases and misfortune, who must wait as a poor servant, with money and property and everything I have! I wish they were in Jerusalem with the Jews and whomsoever they would like to have with them!
Since it is certain that we do not hold them captive, how do we deserve that such great and noble saints are so angry with us? We do not call our wives whores as they call Maria, the Mother of Jesus; we do not call them bastards, as they call our Lord Christ. ”

“ Even with no further evidence than the Old Testament, I would maintain, and no person on earth could alter my opinion, that the Jews, as they are today, are veritably a mixture of all the depraved and malevolent knaves of the whole world over, who have then been dispersed in all countries, similarly to the Tartars, Gypsies and such folk, to afflict the different nations with their usury, to spy upon others and to betray, to poison wells, to deceive and to kidnap children—in short, to practice all kinds of dishonesty and injury. ”

“ Especially because they proudly and haughtily boast, wherever we are friendly to them or serve them, that God has made them to be lords and us to be servants. As when a Christian on the Sabbath lights their fire and cooks for them whatever they desire, for which they curse, bespit and slander us as if they were doing something good, and yet eat up our goods which they have stolen from us. Such a despairing, evil, poisonous thing it is with these Jews who these 1400 years have been and still are our plague, pestilence and all misfortune. ”

“ For no one should think of God so terrible that He would punish his own nation so unmercifully and keep silent by neither comforting words nor indicating the duration or end of such misery! Who would want to believe in such a God, hope in Him, or trust in Him? Therefore, this wrath leads to the conclusion that the Jews are certainly rejected by God and are not His people anymore, and He also is not their God anymore ”

“ And as a distinguishing mark, they strengthen their faith and bitter hatred against us by saying among themselves: “Keep on, see how God is with us and does not forsake His people in exile. We do not work, we enjoy good, lazy days; the cursed Goyim must work for us, we get their money; thereby we are their masters, they, however, our servants. Keep on, dear Children of Israel, it will be better still! Our Messiah will come if we thus continue and appropriate to ourselves, by usury, the “Hemdath” (Hebrew: desire, possessions) of the heathen!” ”

“ And thus the rulers take from the subjects what the Jews have taken, that is: subjects must give money and suffer themselves to be fleeced for the Jews so they can remain in the land freely to lie, slander, curse and steal. Should not the despairing Jews have a good laugh over the way we suffer ourselves to be fooled and be led around by the nose to give our money in order that they may stay in the land to practice all manner of wickedness? On top of all that they even become rich on our sweat and blood, but we become poor and are sucked dry by them? ”

“ A person who does not know the Devil, might wonder why they are so at enmity with the Christians above all others; for which they have no reason, since we only do good to them. They live among us in our homes, under our protection, use land and highways, market and streets. Princes and government sit by, snore and have their mugs (mouth) open, let the Jews take from their purse and chest, steal and rob whatever they will. That is, they permit themselves and their subjects to be abused and sucked dry and reduced to beggars with their own money, through the usury of the Jews. ”

“ For the Jews, as foreigners, certainly should have nothing; and what they have certainly must be ours. They do not work, do not earn anything from us, neither do we donate or give it to them. Yet they have our money and goods and are lords in our land where they are in exile.
If a thief steals ten gulden he must hang; if he robs people on the highway, his head is gone. But a Jew, when he steals ten tons of gold through his usury, is dearer than God Himself. ”

“ Do not their Talmud and Rabbis write that it is no sin to kill if a Jew kills a heathen, but it is sin if he kills a brother in Israel! It is no sin if he does not keep his oath to a heathen. Therefore, to steal and rob (as they do with their usury) from a heathen, is a divine service. For they hold that they cannot be too hard on us nor sin against us, because they are the noble blood and circumcised saints; we however, cursed Goyim. And they are the masters of the world and we are their servants, yea, their cattle! ”

“ Especially you who are preachers: where there are Jews, diligently insist that your masters and regents remember the duties of their office as they owe it to God, and compel the Jews to work, forbid them to practice usury and stay their blaspheming and cursing. For if they punish thieves, robbers, murderers, slanderers and other vices among us Christians, why should the Devil’s children among the Jew be free to do such things against us? ”

“ It is nice indeed to find a maiden or woman who is pious, cleanly and decently dressed and outwardly behaving in a modest manner. But when she is a whore; the dress, decorations, wreath and trinkets would appear, more honest on a sow in the mire. As Solomon says: “A golden braid on the nose of a sow is as a beautiful, silly woman.”
Therefore, they might as well keep from boasting about outward obedience to the Laws of Moses without true obedience to God’s Ten Commandments. Yea, it makes them sevenfold more unworthy to be the people of God than the heathen. ”

“ If God would not want to give me a Messiah who is different from the one the Jews desire and hope for, I would much rather be a sow than a human being! And I will give you some good reasons for this: The Jews desire no more from their Messiah than that He should be a Kochab and a worldly king, who would slay the Christians, divide the world among the Jews and make them rich lords, and finally die like other kings and his children after him likewise. ”

“ Now such rulers and such merciful saints who wish the Jews well, will be the last to let us alone to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, who, of course, knows all hearts better than such merciful saints; that these Jews must be a generation of vipers and children of the Devil; that is, who grant us just as much good as their father, the Devil. What good that fellow has done to us, we Christians should have understood long and well from experience besides the statements of Scripture. ”

“ Our people, however, should be on their guard against these hardened, condemned people (who accuse God of lying and proudly despise the whole world) , that they be not misled. For the Jews would gladly entice us to accept their faith and do so wherever they can. For if God should be gracious toward the Jews, they first would have to do away out of their schools, out of their hearts, and out of their mouths, all such blasphemous prayers and songs, and the boasting and pride about their blood. For such prayer constantly increases God’s wrath upon them. ”

“ Do not dispute much with the Jews about the articles of our faith. From childhood they have been brought up with poison and hatred against our Lord, that there is no hope until they arrive at the point where through their misery they become soft and compelled to confess that the Messiah has come and is our Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise it is altogether too soon, yea, altogether in vain to dispute with them ... In order to strengthen our faith, we shall consider a few instances of foolishness in their faith and interpretation of the Scriptures, because they slander our faith in such a mean way. ”

“ Those Jews professing to be surgeons or doctors deprive the Christians who make use of their medicaments, of health and prosperity, for such Jewish doctors believe they find especial favour with their God if they torment and furtively kill Christians. And we, fools that we are, even turn for succor to our enemies and their evil ways in the times when our lives are in danger, which is indeed sorely trying God’s patience. ”

“ In like manner they may now want to be lenient with the Jews, these blood-thirsty enemies of our Christian and human name, to earn heaven therewith. But for the Jews to hold in captivity, plague, torture and inflict all misery on us poor Christians with all such devilish cruelties as described above,—that we should suffer and is considered a good, Christian indeed, especially where there is money which they have stolen from us. ”

“ In like manner we are treated by the Jews, our guests; we are the hosts. Thus they rob and deprive us, recline on our neck, the lazy and idle bellies, are gluttons in eating and drinking, have easy days in our homes and as a reward curse our Lord Christ, Church, princes and all of us without ceasing to threaten us and to wish us death and all misfortune. ”

“ We are not talking with the Jews, but of the Jews and their deeds, which our German people well know.
They hold one principle on which they depend and in which they trust so much. That is, they are born of the highest people on earth, of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, etc. We (Goyim) heathen are not human beings in their sight, but hardly worthy to be regarded as worms. For we are not of that high, noble blood, birth and descent. ”

“ If the rulers, however, refuse to compel them nor restrain their devilish wantonness, that they be driven from the country, as said, and be told that they move to their own land and possessions in Jerusalem and there lie, curse, blaspheme, spit, murder, steal, rob, practice usury, mock, and engage in all such slanderous abominations as they do among us; and leave us our land, principality, body, goods, much more, our Lord Jesus, faith and church undisturbed and unbesmirched with such devilish tyrannies and wickedness. ”

“ They are pictured in it in a masterful manner before all heathen; for they are the very people who always practiced such ungodly manner of idolatry, and false doctrine, and have had uncircumcised hearts as Moses himself, and all prophets lament over them; but at the same time have endeavored to please God and for that reason killed the prophets. They are the wicked and hardened people who did not suffer themselves to be converted from their evil to good deeds through preaching, teaching, chiding of the prophets, as Scripture testifies everywhere. ”

“ Even if the Jews could give the government such sums from their own, which is not possible, and thereby purchase from us protection openly to lie about, slander, spit upon, and curse our Lord Christ in their schools; and wish on us all manner of misfortune, that all of us be stabbed and perish with our Haman, Kaiser, Princes, Lords, wife and children, that certainly would mean for Christ our Lord, the entire Christendom together with our principality, our wives, and children, to be sold miserably cheap. ”

“ Therefore know, my dear Christian, that next to the Devil you have no more bitter, more poisonous, more vehement an enemy than a real Jew who earnestly desires to be a Jew. There may be some among them who believe what the cow or the goose believes. ”

“ The sun never did shine on a more bloodthirsty and revengeful people as they who imagine to be the people of God who desire to and think they must murder and crush the heathen. And the foremost undertaking which they expect of their Messiah is that He should slay and murder the whole world with their sword. As they at first demonstrated against us Christians and would like to do so now, if they only could ”

“ Through God’s wrath they have been delivered to believe that all of their boasting, vanity, lying to God, cursing all men, are right and a great service to God, something well becoming to such noble blood of the fathers and circumcised saints (no matter how mean they otherwise might know themselves to be in gross vices) which service they think they have rendered hereby. Look out for them!
They brag and boast that they have had the land of Canaan, the city of Jerusalem and the temple from God. ”

“ Neither permit your money and goods, and the money and goods of your subjects, to serve the Jews through their usury. We still have plenty of our own sins and daily add much to them through our ingratitude and despising God’s grace and work; that it is not necessary to add to them these mean foreign vices of the Jews and also give them our money and goods. ”

“ But our bastards and false Jews think they must curse us, hate and do us all manner of harm wherever they can do so; for which they have no reason whatsoever. Therefore they certainly are not God’s people. ”

“ Moses writes in Deuteronomy that where a city practiced idolatry, it should be entirely destroyed with fire and leave nothing. If he were living today he would be the first to put fire to the Jew schools and houses. [Followed by proofs from Scripture.]
Secondly, that you also refuse to let them own houses among us. For they practice the same thing in their houses as they do in their schools. Instead, you might place them under a roof, or stable, like the Gypsies, to let them know that they are not lords in our country as they boast, but in exile as captives ”