It was prophesied by the patriarch Jacob that there would be two Advents of Christ, and that in the first He would be liable to suffering, and that after He had come there would be neither prophet nor king in your race, as I have brought forward, and that the Gentiles, believing on the Christ who was liable to suffering, would look forward to His coming again. For this reason, I said, the Holy Spirit had spoken these things in parable and obscurely.
And I added that He spake thus: Judah, thy brethren praised thee; thy hands are on the back of thine enemies; the sons of thy father shall worship thee. A lion’s whelp is Judah; from a shoot wentest thou up, my son. He couched and lay down as a lion and as a whelp; who shall arouse him? There shall not fail a ruler out of Judah, and a leader out of his loins, until those things that are reserved for him shall have come; and He shall be the expectation of nations, binding unto a vine His colt, and to the vine-tendril His ass’s colt. He shall wash His robe in wine, and His garment in the blood of the grape. His eyes are sparkling from wine, and His teeth are white as milk.
That therefore neither prophet nor ruler ever ceased in your race, since it took its beginning, until Jesus Christ lived and suffered, you will not be impudent enough to dare to say, nor can you prove it.
For although you say that Herod, at whose hands He suffered, was from Ascalon, you still say that there was a High Priest in your race, so that, as you had also one at that time who, in accordance with the Law of Moses, both offered offerings and kept the other precepts of the Law, and as there were prophets in succession until John (even when your people was led away to Babylon, your land laid waste and your holy vessels carried off), there never ceased a prophet from among you who was lord and leader and ruler of your people. For the spirit in the prophets used to anoint and appoint even your kings.
But after the appearance and death of Jesus our Christ in your race there has been no prophet anywhere, nor now exists, and, further, you have ceased to be under your own kings, and, in addition, your land has been laid waste, and left as a store-house of fruits (in a garden of cucumbers). But in uttering by means of Jacob the expression: And He shall be the expectation of nations, He signified by figure His two Advents, and also that the Gentiles should believe Him, which, though late, you can see for yourselves. For we, who from among all the nations have become by our faith in Christ righteous worshippers of God, look forward to His coming again.