23. Then suddenly their eyes were opened, and they saw falling from that cloud hail mixed with fire; and they saw it turning to a sticky substance on the ground, and worms in the sticky substance. Further off to the North they saw as it were bruchi* and locusts coming down from the cloud, which ate up the grass of the earth; and there appeared eagles flying out of the desert, and also night birds from the same place, which swallowed the worlds and licked up the sticky substance like water. They were astonished by these sights and pressed the angels for an explanation. They told them it was the abomination of desolation upon earth. The hail stands for falsified truths; the fire mixed with it for evils of life; the sticky substance on the ground for the coherence of [evils]; the worms for life from them; the bruchi and locusts for falsities of belief; the birds stand for the men upon earth who live only on such food which comes down from the spiritual world; and the eagles for reasonings and confirmations. * bruchi, wingless locusts, formerly regarded as a separate species; the word occurs in LXX and Vulgate at Leviticus xi 22.