"All who sleep not above in heaven shall bless Him: All the holy ones who are in heaven shall bless Him, And all the elect who dwell in the garden of life:

"And every spirit of light who is able to bless, and glorify, and extol, and hallow Thy blessed name,

And all flesh shall beyond measure glorify and bless Thy name forever and ever.

"For great is the mercy of the Lord of Spirits, and He is long-suffering,

And all His works and all that He has created

He has revealed to the righteous and elect

In the name of the Lord of Spirits."

CHAPTER LXII

And thus the Lord commanded the kings and the mighty and the exalted, and those who dwell on the earth, and said:

Open your eyes and lift up your horns if ye are able to recognize the Elect One."

And the Lord of Spirits seated him on the throne of His
glory,
And the spirit of righteousness was poured out upon him,
And the word of his mouth slays all the sinners,

And all the unrighteous are destroyed from before his face. And there shall stand up in that day all the kings and the mighty,

And the exalted and those who hold the earth,

And they shall see and recognize

How he sits on the throne of his glory,

And righteousness is judged before him,

And no lying word is spoken before him.

Then shall pain come upon them as on a woman in travail,

And she has pain in bringing forth;

When her child enters the mouth of the womb,

And she has pain in bringing forth.

And one portion of them shall look on the other,

And they shall be terrified,

And they shall be downcast of countenance,

And pain shall seize them,

When they see that Son of Man

Sitting on the throne of his glory.

And the kings and the mighty and all who possess the earth shall bless and glorify and extol him who rules over all, who was hidden.

For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, And the Most High preserved him in the presence of His might,

And revealed him to the elect.

And the congregation of the elect and holy shall be sown, And all the elect shall stand before him on that day.

And all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who rule the earth

Shall fall down before him on their faces,

And worship and set their hope upon that Son of Man, And petition him and supplicate for mercy at his hands.

Nevertheless that Lord of Spirit will so press them
That they shall hastily go forth from His presence,
And their faces shall be filled with shame,

And the darkness grow deeper on their faces.

And He will deliver them to the angels for punishment, To execute vengeance on them because they have oppressed His children and his elect.

And they shall be a spectacle for the righteous and for His elect:

They shall rejoice over them,

Because the wrath of the Lord of Spirits resteth upon

them,

And His sword is drunk with their blood.

And the righteous and elect shall be saved on that day, And they shall never thenceforward see the face of the sinners and unrighteous.

And the Lord of Spirits will abide over them,
And with that Son of Man shall they eat

And lie down and rise up forever and ever.

And the righteous and elect shall have risen from the earth,

And ceased to be of downcast countenance.

And they shall have been clothed with garments of glory, And these shall be the garments of life from the Lord of Spirits:

And your garments shall not grow old,

Nor your glory pass away before the Lord of Spirits.

CHAPTER LXIII

In those days shall the mighty and the kings who possess the earth implore Him to grant them a little respite from His angels of punishment to whom they were delivered, that they might fall down and worship before the Lord of Spirits, and confess their sins before Him. And they shall bless and glorify the Lord of Spirits and say:

"Blessed is the Lord of Spirits and the Lord of kings, And the Lord of the mighty and the Lord of the rich, And the Lord of glory and the Lord of wisdom,

And splendid in every secret thing is Thy power from generation to generation,

And Thy glory forever and ever:

"Deep are all Thy secrets and innumerable, And Thy righteousness is beyond reckoning.

"We have now learnt that we should glorify

And bless the Lord of kings and Him who is king over all kings."

And they shall say:

"Would that we had rest to glorify and give thanks And confess our faith before His glory!

66 And now we long for a little rest but find it not: We follow hard upon and obtain it not:

"And light has vanished from before us,

And darkness is our dwelling-place forever and ever:

"For we have not believed before Him

Nor glorified the name of the Lord of Spirits, nor glorified our Lord,

"But our hope was in the scepter of our kingdom, And in our glory.

"And in the day of our suffering and tribulation He saves us not,

And we find no respite for confession

"That our Lord is true in all His works, and in His judgments and His justice,

And His judgments have no respect of persons.

"And we pass away from before His face on account of our works,

And all our sins are reckoned up in righteousness."

Now they shall say unto themselves: "Our souls are full of unrighteous gain, but it does not prevent us from descending from the midst thereof into the burden of Sheol." 53

53" Sheol." (1) The oldest view of Sheol occurs in, e.g., Job xxx. 23; Numb. xvi. 30. It is the place appointed for all living, is beneath the earth, and is the land of destruction, forgetfulness, and silence. The individual does exist, but without joy or contact with God or man. Good and bad fare alike, but the family, and national and social distinctions of the world above are reproduced. Compare the Homeric Hades.

And after that their faces shall be filled with darkness And shame before that son of Man,

And they shall be driven from his presence,

And the sword shall abide before his face in their midst.

Thus spake the Lord of Spirits: "This is the ordinance and judgment with respect to the mighty and the kings, and the exalted, and those who possess the earth before the Lord of Spirits."

And other forms I saw hidden in that place. I heard the voice of the angels, saying: "These are the angels who descended to the earth, and revealed what was hidden to the Ichildren of men and seduced the children of men into committing sin."

Enoch Foretells to Noah the Deluge 55

CHAPTER LXV

And in those days Noah 56 saw the earth that it had sunk down and its destruction was nigh. And he arose from thence and went to the ends of the earth,57 and cried aloud to his grandfather Enoch: and Noah said three times with an embittered voice: "Hear me, hear me, hear me.' And I said unto him: "Tell me what it is that is falling out on the earth that the earth is in such evil plight and

(2) In the second century B.C. the doctrine of future retribution and the Resurrection altered the conception to that of a place of reward, and also that of an intermediate state (chapter li.). (3) Owing to the Resurrection being limited to the righteous, Sheol came to mean hell, or Gehenna, as the preliminary or permanent abode of wicked souls (chapters xiii. and xcix.). See Charles, "The Doctrine of a Future Life." 54 A digression on the fallen angels, judged in the second Parable. It is out of the context here.

55 Note that the vision is Noah's. It opens with a sinking of the earth here as with a quaking of the heavens in chapter lx.

56" Noah." "I Noah" and so in first person for the following verses, as it is clearly Noah who speaks.

57"The ends of the earth," i.e., where the entrance to heaven is.