Wednesday, March 27, 2024

The Book of Enoch: Chapters XCII - XCVI

Chapter XCII

1. After this, Enoch began to speak from a book.
2. And Enoch said. Concerning the children of righteousness, concerning the elect of the world, and concerning the plant of righteousness and integrity.
3. Concerning these things will I speak, and these things will I explain to you, my children : I who am Enoch. In consequence of that which has been shown to me, from my heavenly vision and from the voice of the holy angels have I acquired knowledge; and from the tablet of heaven have I acquired understanding.
4. Enoch then began to speak from a book, and said, I have been born the seventh in the first week, while judgment and righteousness wait with patience.
5. But after me, in the second week, great wickedness shall arise, and fraud shall spring forth.
6. In that week the end of the first shall take place, in which mankind shall be safe.
7. But when the first is completed, iniquity shall grow up ; and he shall execute the decree upon sinners.
8. Afterwards, in the third week, during its completion, a man of the plant of righteous judgment shall be selected ; and after him the plant of righteousness shall come for ever.
9. Subsequently, in the fourth week, during its completion, the visions of the holy and the righteous shall be seen, the order of generation after generation shall take place, and an habitation shall be made for them. Then in the fifth week, during its completion, the house of glory and of dominion shall be erected for ever.
10. After that, in the sixth week, all those who are in it shall be darkened, the hearts of all of them shall be forgetful of wisdom, and in it shall a man ascend.
11. And during its completion he shall burn the house of dominion with fire, and all the race of the elect root shall be dispersed. 12. Afterwards, in the seventh week, a perverse generation shall arise ; abundant shall be its deeds and all its deeds perverse. During its completion, the righteous shall be selected from the everlasting plant of righteousness ; and to them shall be given the sevenfold doctrine of his whole creation.
13. Afterwards there shall be another week, the eighth of righteousness, to which shall be given a sword to execute judgment and justice upon all oppressors.
14. Sinners shall be delivered up into the hands of the righteous, who during its completion shall acquire habitations by their righteousness ; and the house of the great King shall be established for celebrations for ever. After, this, in the ninth week, shall the judgment of righteousness be revealed to the whole world.
15. Every work of the ungodly shall disappear from the whole earth ; the world shall be marked for destruction ; and all men shall be on the look out for the path of integrity.
16. And after this, on the seventh day of the tenth week, there shall be an everlasting judgment, which shall be executed upon the Watchers ; and a spacious eternal heaven shall spring forth in the midst of the angels.
17. The former heaven shall depart and pass away ; a new heaven shall appear ; and all the celestial powers shine with sevenfold splendour for ever. Afterwards likewise shall there be many weeks, which shall externally exist in goodness and in righteousness.
18. Neither shall sin be named there for ever and for ever.
19. Who is there of all the children of men, capable of hearing the voice of the Holy One without emotion ?
20. Who is there capable of thinking his thoughts? Who capable of contemplating all the workmanship of heaven ? Who of comprehending the deeds of heaven ?
21. He may behold its animation, but not its spirit. He may be capable of conversing respecting it, but not of ascending to it. He may see all the boundaries of these things, and meditate upon them ; but he can make nothing like them.
22. Who of all men is able to understand the breadth and length of the earth ?
23. By whom have been seen the dimensions of all these things ? Is it every man who is capable of comprehending the extent of heaven ; what its elevation is, and by what it is supported ?
24. How many are the numbers of the stars ; and where all the luminaries remain at rest ?


Chapter XCIII

1. And now let me exhort you, my children, to love righteousness, and to walk in it ; for the paths of righteousness are worthy of acceptation; but the paths of iniquity shall suddenly fail, and be diminished.
2. To men of note in their generation the paths of oppression and death are revealed ; but they keep far from them, and do not follow them.
3. Now, too, let me exhort you who are righteous, not to walk in the paths of evil and oppression, nor in the paths of death. Approach them not, that you may not perish ; but covet,
4. And choose for yourselves righteousness, and a good life.
5. Walk in the paths of peace, that you may live, and be found worthy. Retain my words in your inmost thoughts, and obliterate them not from your hearts : for I know that sinners counsel men to commit crime craftily. They are not found in every place, nor does every counsel possess a little of them.
6. Woe to those who build up iniquity and oppression, and who lay the foundation of fraud for suddenly shall they be subverted, and never obtain peace.
7. Woe to those who build up their houses with crime ; for from their very foundations shall their houses be demolished, and by the sword shall they themselves fall. Those, too, who acquire gold and silver, shall justly and suddenly perish. Woe to you who are rich, for in your riches have you trusted but from your riches you shall be removed ; because you have not remembered the Most High in the days of your prosperity:
8. You have committed blasphemy and iniquity ; and are destined to the day of the effusion of blood, to the day of darkness, and to the day of the great judgment.
9. This I declare and point out to you, that he who created you will destroy you.
10. When you fall, he will not show you mercy; but your Creator will rejoice in your destruction.
11. Let those, then, who shall be righteous among you in those days, detest sinners, and the ungodly.


Chapter XCIV

1. O that my eyes were clouds of water, that I might weep over you, and pour forth my tears like rain, and rest from the sorrow of my heart!
2. Who has permitted you to hate and to transgress ? Judgment shall overtake you, ye sinners.
3. The righteous shall not fear the wicked because God will again bring them into your power, that you may avenge yourselves of them according to your pleasure.
4. Woe to you who shall be so bound by execrations, that you cannot be released from them the remedy being far removed from you on account of your sins. Woe to you who recompense your neighbour with evil ; for you shall be recompensed according to your works.
5. Woe to you, ye false witnesses, you who aggravate iniquity ; for you shall suddenly perish.
6. Woe to you, ye sinners; for you reject the righteous ; for you receive or reject at pleasure those who commit iniquity ; and their yoke shall prevail over you.


Chapter XCV

1. Wait in hope, ye righteous ; for suddenly shall sinners perish from before you, and you shall exercise dominion over them, according to your will.
2. In the day of the sufferings of sinners your offspring shall be elevated, and lifted up like eagles. Your nest shall be more exalted than that of the avest you shall ascend, and enter into the cavities ; of the earth, and into the clefts of the rocks for ever, like conies, from the sight of the ungodly ;
3. Who shall groan over you, and weep like sirens.
4. You shall not fear those who trouble you ; for restoration shall be yours; a splendid light shall shine around you, and the voice of tranquillity shall be heard from heaven. Woe to you, sinners ; for your wealth makes you resemble saints, but your hearts reproach you, knowing that you are sinners. This word shall testify against you, for the remembrance of crime.
5. Woe to you who feed upon the glory of the corn, and drink the strength of the deepest spring, and in the pride of your power tread down the humble.
6. Woe to you who drink water at pleasure ; for suddenly shall you be recompensed, consumed, and withered, because you have forsaken the fountain of life.
7. Woe to you who act iniquitously, fraudulently, and blasphemously ; there shall be a remembrance against you for evil.
8. Woe to you, ye powerful, who with power strike down righteousness ; for the day of your destruction shall come ; while at that very time many and good days shall be the portion of the righteous, even at the period of your judgment.


Chapter XCVI

1. The righteous are confident that sinners will be disgraced, and perish in the day of iniquity.
2. You shall yourselves be conscious of it ; for the Most High will remember your destruction, and the angels shall rejoice over it. What will you do ye sinners, and where will you fly in the day of judgment, when you shall hear the words of the prayer of the righteous ?
3. You are not like them who in this respect witness against you ; you are associates of sinners.
4. In those days shall the prayers of the righteous come up before the Lord. When the day of your judgment shall arrive; and every circumstance of your iniquity be related before the great and the holy One;
5. Your faces shall be covered with shame; while every deed, strengthened by crime, shall be rejected.
6. Woe unto you, sjnners, who in the midst of the sea, and on dry land, are those against whom an evil record exists. Woe to you who squander silver and gold, not obtained in righteousness, and say, We are rich, possess wealth, and have acquired everything which we can desire.
7. Now then will we do whatsoever we are disposed to do ; for we have amassed silver ; our barns are full, and the husbandmen of our families are like overflowing water.
8. Like water shall your falsehood pass away ; for your wealth will not be permanent, but shall suddenly ascend from you, because you have obtained it all iniquitously ; to extreme malediction shall you be delivered up.
9. And now I swear to you, ye crafty, as well as simple ones ; that you, often contemplating the earth, you who are men, clothe yourselves more elegantly than married women, and both together more so than unmarried ones, everywhere arraying yourselves in majesty, in magnificence, in authority, and in silver : but gold, purple, honour, and wealth, like water, flow away.
10. Erudition therefore and wisdom are not theirs. Thus shall they perish, together with their riches, with all their glory, and with their honours;
11. While with disgrace, with slaughter, and in extreme penury, shall their spirits be thrust into a furnace of fire.
12. I have sworn to you, ye sinners, that neither mountain nor hill has been or shall be subservient to woman.
13. Neither in this way has crime been sent down to us upon earth, but men of their own heads have invented it; and greatly shall those who give it efficiency be execrated.
14. Barrenness shall not be previously inflicted on woman ; but on account of the work of her hands shall she die childless.
15. I have sworn to you, ye sinners, by the holy and the Great One, that all your evil deeds are disclosed in the heavens ; and that none of your oppressive acts are concealed and secret.
16. Think not in your minds, neither say in your hearts, that every crime is not manifested and seen. In heaven it is daily written down before the Most High. Henceforwards shall it be manifested ; for every act of oppression which you commit shall be daily recorded, until the period of your condemnation.
17. Woe to you, ye simple ones, for you shall perish in your simplicity. To the wise you will not listen, and that which is good you shall not obtain.
18. Now therefore know that you are destined to the day of destruction ; nor hope that sinners shall live but in process of time you shall die for you are not marked for redemption;
19. But are destined to the day of the great judgment, to the day of distress, and the extreme ignominy of your souls.
20. Woe to you, ye obdurate in heart, who commit crime, and feed on blood. Whence is it that you feed on good things, drink, and are satiated ? Is it not because our Lord, the Most High, has abundantly supplied every good thing upon earth? To you there shall not be peace.
21. Woe to you who love the deeds of iniquity. Why do you hope for that which is good ? Know that you shall be given up into the hands of the righteous ; who shall cut off your necks, slay you, and show you no compassion.
22. Woe to you who rejoice in the trouble of the righteous ; for a grave shall not be dug for you.
23. Woe to you who frustrate the word of the righteous; for to you there shall be no hope of life.
24. Woe to you who write down the word of falsehood, and the word of the wicked ; for their falsehood they record, that they may hear and not forget folly.
25. To them there shall be no peace ; but they shall surely die suddenly.


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