As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Ver. 36. We are killed all the day] In Diocletian's days 17,000 Christians are said to have been slain in one month. In the Parisian massacre 30,000 in as little time, and within the year 300,000.
As sheep to the slaughter] That lamentable story of the Christians of Calabria that suffered persecution, A. D. 1560, comes home to this text. For being all thrust up in one house together, as in a sheepfold, the executioner comes in, and among them takes one, and blindfolds him with a muffler about his eyes, and so leadeth him forth to a larger place, where he commandeth him to kneel down. Which being done, he cutteth his throat, and so leaveth him half dead; and taking his butcher's knife and muffler all of gore blood, he cometh again to the rest, and so leading them one after another, he despatcheth them, to the number of 88, no otherwise than doth a butcher kill his calves and sheep.