Enoch - BOOK OF ENOCH, 1882

The Concluding Section of the Book: Different Destinies of the Righteous and the Sinners: fresh Objections of the Sinners.

nd now I swear to you the just, by his great glory and his honor, and by his glorious kingdom and by his greatness I swear to you:

2. I know this mystery, and have read it in the tablets of heaven, and have seen the book of the holy ones, and have found written in it and inscribed on their account,

3. that all goodness and joy and honor are prepared for them, and are written down for the spirits of those who have died in justice, and that much good is given to you as a reward for your labor, and that your portion is better than the portion of the living.

4. And your souls will live, ye who have died in justice, and your spirits will rejoice and be glad, and their remembrance will be before the face of the Great One to all the generations of eternity. And now do not fear their shame.

5. Woe to you, sinners, if ye die in your sins, and those who are like you say concerning you: "Blessed are they, the sinners, they have seen all their days;

6. and now they have died in good fortune and in wealth, and have not seen trouble or murder in their life; in glory they have died, and judgment has not been passed over them in their life."

7. Do ye know that their souls will be caused to descend into Sheol, and it will be ill with them, and their trouble great?

8. And in darkness and in toils and in a burning flame their spirits will burn at the great judgment; and a great judgment will be for all generations to eternity. Woe to you, for ye will have no peace!

9. Say not to the just and good who are in life: "In the days of our need we have endured labor, and have seen all need, and have met much evil, and have been injured and diminished, and our spirit has become small.

10. We have been destroyed, and there was none to help us; with word and deed we were incapable, and attained to nothing whatever; we were tortured and destroyed, and did not hope to see life, day by day.

11. We hoped to be the head, and were the tail; we labored exceedingly, and did not gain by our labor; we became food for sinners, and the unjust laid their yoke heavily upon us.

12. Those who hated and those who beat us became our rulers; and we bent our neck to our haters, and they did not pity us.

13. And we desired to go from them in order to flee and to rest, but we did not find whither to flee and to save ourselves from them.

14. We complained to the rulers in our trouble and in our pain over those who devoured us; but they did not attend to our cry, and did not wish to hear our voice.

15. And they helped those who robbed and devoured us, and those who diminished us, and they made secret their oppression, so that they did not remove their yoke from us, but devoured us and scattered us and murdered us; and they kept secret our murder, and did not think of it that they had lifted up their hands against us."