When they persecute you in this city flee [pg 089] unto another, for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come (Mt 10:23). If one so understands the com[m]ission to the Twelve as to suppose that Jesus would say through his Disciples that the time is now come for the realisation of the Kingdom by a new moral behaviour, that eschatological saying lies like an erratic boulder in the midst of a flowery meadow. If, however, one conceives of the embassage eschatologically, the saying acquires a great context: it is a rock in the midst of a wild mountain landscape. One cannot affirm of this saying that it has been interpolated here by a later age; rather with compelling force it fixes the presence of eschatological conceptions in the days of the mission of the Twelve. The one and only article of instruction that is required is the call to repentance. Whosoever believes in the nearness of the Kingdom, repents. Hence Jesus gives the Disciples authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal the sick (Mt 10:1). By these signs they are to perceive that the power of ungodliness is coming to an end and the morning-glow of the Kingdom of God already dawns. That belongs to their errand as teachers, for whosoever fails to believe their [pg 090] signs, and thereupon brings forth no works of repentance unto the Kingdom of God,—that man is damned. Thus have C[h]orazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum come into condemnation. Faith and repentance were made easy for them by the signs and wonders with which they were favoured beyond others—and yet they did not come to themselves, as even pagan cities like Tyre and Sidon would have done (Mt 11:20-24). This saying addressed to the people shows what significance Jesus ascribed to the signs in view of the eschatological embassage.