Know ye, that their souls will be made to descend into Sheol

And they shall be wretched in their great tribulation. And into darkness and chains and a burning flame where there is grievous judgment shall your spirits enter; And the great judgment shall be for all the generations of the world.

Woe to you, for ye shall have no peace.

Say not in regard to the righteous and good who are in life:

"In our troubled days we have toiled laboriously and experienced every trouble,

And met with much evil and been consumed,
And have become few and our spirit small.

"And we have been destroyed and have not found any to help us even with a word:

We have been tortured and destroyed, and not hoped to see life from day to day.

"We hoped to be the head and have become the tail: We have toiled laboriously and had no satisfaction in our

toil;

And we have become the food of the sinners and the

unrighteous,

And they have laid their yoke heavily upon us.

They have had dominion over us that hated us and

smote us;

And to those that hated us we have bowed our necks

But they pitied us not.

"We desired to get away from them that we might escape

and be at rest,

But found no place whereunto we should flee and be safe from them.

"And we complained to the rulers in our tribulation,109 And cried out against those who devoured us,

109 These verses help to fix the date of chapters xci.-civ. In chapters

But they did not attend to our cries
And would not harken to our voice.

And they helped those who robbed us and devoured us and those who made us few; and they concealed their oppression, and they did not remove from us the yoke of those that devoured us and dispersed us and murdered us, and they concealed their murder, and remembered not that they had lifted up their hands against us."

CHAPTER CIV

I swear unto you, that in heaven the angels remember you for good before the glory of the Great One: and your names are written before the glory of the Great One. Be hopeful; for aforetime ye were put to shame through ill and affliction; but now ye shall shine as the lights of heaven, ye shall shine and ye shall be seen, and the portals of heaven. shall be opened to you. And in your cry, cry for judg ment, and it shall appear to you; for all your tribulation shall be visited on the rulers, and on all who helped those who plundered you. Be hopeful, and cast not away your hope; for ye shall have great joy as the angels of heaven. What shall ye be obliged to do? Ye shall not have to hide on the day of the great judgment and ye shall not be found as sinners, and the eternal judgment shall be far from you for all the generations of the world. And now fear not, ye righteous, when ye see the sinners growing strong and prospering in their ways: be not companions with them, but keep afar from their violence; for ye shall become companions of the hosts of heaven. And although ye sinners say: "All our sins shall not be searched out and be written down," lxxxiii.-xc. the rulers appear as the divinely appointed leaders of the righteous. Here they are shown as the aiders and abettors of the persecutors. These enemies are the Sadducees, sinners, apostates, and paganizers. The righteous are the Pharisaic party. These issues only became clear in the Maccabean period, and after the breach between John Hyrcanus and the Pharisees. Dispersed" and "murdered point to Jannaeus, and the date 94-79 B.C. Possibly it is later, 70-64 B.C., when for the last time Sadducees and rulers acted in concert.

VOL. XIV.-12.

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nevertheless they shall write down all your sins every day. And now I show unto you that light and darkness, day and night, see all your sins. Be not godless in your hearts, and lie not and alter not the words of uprightness, nor charge with lying the words of the Holy Great One, nor take account of your idols; for all your lying and all your godlessness issue not in righteousness but in great sin. And now I know this mystery, that sinners will alter and pervert the words of righteousness in many ways, and will speak wicked words, and lie, and practise great deceits, and write books concerning their words. But when they write down truthfully all my words in their languages, and do not change or minish aught from my words, but write them all down truthfully all that I first testified concerning them. Then, I know another mystery, that books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom. And to them shall the books be given, and they shall believe in them and rejoice over them, and then shall all the righteous who have learned therefrom all the paths of uprightness be recompensed.

God and the Messiah to Dwell with Man

CHAPTER CV

In those days 110 the Lord bade them to summon and testify to the children of earth concerning their wisdom: Show it unto them; for ye are their guides, and a recompense over the whole earth. For I and My Son 111 will be united with them forever in the paths of uprightness in their lives; and ye shall have peace: rejoice, ye children of uprightness. Amen.

110 This chapter does not seem to belong to chapters xci.-civ. (1) "Children of earth" is used in a good sense. (2) The Messiah is introduced, here alone in chapters xci.-civ. (3) The emphasis is on the finite life of the saints on earth (an idea of chapters i.-xxxvi.), not on the immortal life in heaven, as in chapters xci.-civ.

111 "I and My Son," i.e., the Messiah. The righteous are God's children, and preeminently so the Messiah.

THE BOOK OF NOAH

(A FRAGMENT PLACED AT THE END OF THE BOOK OF

ENOCH)

CHAPTER CVI

And after some days my son Methuselah took a wife for his son Lamech, and she become pregnant by him and bore a son. And his body was white as snow and red as the blooming of a rose, and the hair of his head and his long locks were white as wool, and his eyes beautiful. And when he opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright. And thereupon he arose in the hands of the midwife, opened his mouth, and conversed with the Lord of righteousness. And his father Lamech was afraid of him and fled, and came to his father Methuselah. And he said upon him: "I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is different and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the sun, and his countenance is glorious. And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me but from the angels, and I fear that in his days a wonder may be wrought on the earth. And now, my father, I am here to petition thee and implore thee that thou mayst go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling-place is amongst the angels." And when Methuselah heard the words of his son, he came to me to the ends of the earth; for he had heard that I was there, and he cried aloud, and I heard his voice and I came to him. And I said unto him: Behold, here am I, my son, wherefore hast thou come to me?" And he answered and said: "Because of a great cause of anxiety have I come to thee, and because of a disturbing vision have I approached. And now, my father, hear me unto Lamech my son there hath been born a son, the like of whom there is none, and his nature is not like

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man's nature, and the color of his body is whiter than snow and redder than the bloom of a rose, and the hair of his head is whiter than white wool, and his eyes are like the rays of the sun, and he opened his eyes and thereupon lighted up the whole house. And he arose in the hands of the midwife, and opened his mouth and blessed the Lord of heaven. And his father Lamech became afraid and fled to me, and did not believe that he was sprung from him, but that he was in the likeness of the angels of heaven; and behold I have come to thee that thou mayest make known to me the truth." And I, Enoch, answered and said unto him: "The Lord will do a new thing on the earth, and this I have already seen in a vision, and make known to thee that in the generation of my father Jared some of the angels of heaven transgressed the word of the Lord. And behold they commit sin and transgress the law, and have united themselves with women and commit sin with them, and have married some of them, and have begot children by them. And they shall produce on the earth giants not according to the spirit, but according to the flesh, and there shall be a great punishment on the earth, and the earth shall be cleansed from all impurity. Yea, there shall come a great destruction over the whole earth, and there shall be a deluge and a great destruction for one year. And this son who has been born unto you shall be left on the earth, and his three children shall be saved with him: when all mankind that are on the earth shall die he and his sons shall be saved. And now make known to thy son Lamech that he who has been born is in truth his son, and call his name Noah; for he shall be left to you, and he and his sons shall be saved from the destruction, which shall come upon the earth on account of all the sin and all the unrighteousness, which shall be consummated on the earth in his days. And after that there shall be still more unrighteousness than that which was first consummated on the earth; for I know the mysteries of the holy ones; for He, the Lord, has showed me and informed me, and I have read them in the heavenly tablets."