“The voice which I had heard from heaven began speaking to me again; it said, ‘Go and take the scroll which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and the land’. I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He answered, ‘Take it, and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will taste as sweet as honey.’ I took the scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it and in my mouth it did taste as sweet as honey, but when I swallowed it my stomach turned sour.”
(Revelation 10:8-10)

The scroll is the little book with God’s decrees for the world, which are sweet when we receive them from his hand, and they hurt our insides because there is suffering in life, and because it is easy to listen the God’s word but it is difficult to put it into practice. It is the same book as was offered to the prophet Ezekiel in his vision, parallel to the one of John.

“Then he said to me, ‘O man, eat what is in front of you; eat this scroll: then go end speak to the Israelites.’ I opened my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat, saying, ‘O man, swallow this scroll I give you, and eat your fill.’ I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey to me.”
(Ezekiel 3:1-3)

The vision of the scroll before the eyes and into the mouth passes on from the prophet of the Old Testament to the apostle of the New. The book is not to be read but to be devoured, as we familiarly say we have devoured a book in rapid reading. This book is a scroll written on the back and on the front with God’s will for me and for humankind. It is the book of his word and his inspiration, of prophecy and gospel, of preaching and witnessing, and then, in its own continuity and development, it becomes every book and every written page that reflects God’s will, every word pronounced with faith and prayer to provide an echo for the eternal word, every printed writing as a pledge of his continued presence among us. New books in the hands of the everlasting angel. The writing continues.