(4) And the Lord reproved Cain because of Abel, because he had slain him, and he made him a fugitive on the earth because of the blood of his brother, and he cursed him upon the earth.

(90) Now when Cain had murdered his Brother, then he went securely as a Lord, and thought, now thou art sole Prince on Earth; but the Voice of the fierce Anger of God came, and said; Where is thy Brother Abel? and he answered, / know not, Shall I be my Brother's Keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? Behold, the Voice of thy Brother's Blood cries to me from the Earth; and now thou art cursed upon the Earth, which has opened its Mouth to receive thy Brother's Blood from thy Hands. When thou shalt till the Ground, it shall not yield its Strength to thee henceforth; thou shalt be a Vagabond and Fugitive upon Earth.

(32) I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.

(105) Yet God would not have it so, but kkindled the Anger in Cain, which rested before in the swelled Kingdom of the four Elements, and was only climbed up in great and mighty Joy, whereas Cain did not know the Anger, nor understand any Thing of it; only the Essences of the Soul knew that they dealt falsly, but they knew not the fierce Source in the Kindling of the Fire, till they went forth from the Center of God into the Horror, Trembling, and Crying; for they were gone out from Or Wickedness. God, and neither saw nor felt the heavenly Source any more; and therefore they despaired, because they found [or felt] themselves in the Source of the Wrath; and the Body with all its Essences cried; My Sins are greater than that they can be forgiven.

(104) His Anger against Abel came from hence, because Abel stood not in his Birth, and his Spirit would not endure the Kingdom of Abei in his Kingdom; for he would rule (as by his own Power) in the i two Principles wherein he stood; and therefore he slew Abel.

(94) Thus also God withdrew, that is, Cain went out from God, from the Kingdom of God into the Kingdom of the Fierceness of the Driver; therefore also his Affairs (which he further [managed, held forth, and] pretended) were not of God, but from the Kingdom of the fierce Wrath; that [Fierceness] led him, and generated or awakened its Wonders through him, that the [Kingdom of the Fierceness] might be also manifested, even as it was a great Wonder, i how the noble Image in Abel, by the Fierceness of Hell, and of this World, could be separated in the Breaking of the Body; whereas the Kingdom of Hell would fain have found [or felt] it; and therefore the first Death must be hastily [or suddenly,] where then the Treader upon the Serpent showed his first Master-piece, when the Kingdom of this World parted from Abel, when the Cherubim did this first Time cut off the four Elements from the holy Element.

(97) But it was miserable, and all in vain, for Cain (in his tender Humanity) cried. Woe, woe is me. His Sins were greater than he, he could not in his own Power press into God; he trembled, and at length stood amazed before the Abyss of Hell, which had captivated him, and held him in it; he severed himself now also from [the Company of] Men, and said, Now whosoever shall find me will slay me, for I must fly from thy Face.

(2) Therefore now we can speak or write of nothing else but of his Wonders; for we have a great Example of them in Cain, when the Kingdom of the fierce Wrath (after his Murder) awaked in him, and would have devoured him, that God came to help him; when the divine Justice (in his Conscience) sentenced him to Death, then the divine Answer spoke against it, [saying] No: Whosoever slayeth Cain, it shall be avenged sevenfold; by which Speech the fierce Vengeance of the Abyss of Hell was driven away from him, so that Cain did not despair; and As the Thoughts in the Mind flow or spring up. though he was gone forth from God, yet the Kingdom of Heaven stood towards him, he might turn, and enter into Repentance. God had not yet quite rejected him; but his malicious, murderous, and false Confidence he accursed, and would not nbe therein.

(91) And now when the Anger of God stirred the Sin in Cain, then it became awakened, and he was perplexed [or troubled,] and then his false Faith was seen; for he despaired, and said, My Sins are greater than that they can be forgiven me; behold thou drivest me away from the Lord this Day, and I must bide myself 'c from thy Countenance, and I must be a Fugitive and Vagabond upon the Earth; and it shall so befall me, that whosoever dfindeth me will slay me.

(3) "Came any one by his own merit hence, Or by another's, who was blessed thereafter?" And he, who understood my covert speech, Replied: "I was a novice in this state, When I saw hither come a Mighty One, With sign of victory incoronate. Hence he drew forth the shade of the First Parent, And that of his son Abel, and of Noah, Of Moses the lawgiver, and the obedient Abraham, patriarch, and David, king, Israel with his father and his children, And Rachel, for whose sake he did so much, And others many, and he made them blessed; And thou must know, that earlier than these Never were any human spirits saved." We ceased not to advance because he spake, But still were passing onward through the forest, The forest, say I, of thick-crowded ghosts. Not very far as yet our way had gone This side the summit, when I saw a fire That overcame a hemisphere of darkness. We were a little distant from it still, But not so far that I in part discerned not That honourable people held that place.

(75) But while we are thus speaking of the upright Abel, we cannot say, that the Kingdom of Heaven was not assisting in him, and that he merely out of his own Might and Power made himself such an upright [honest] Man; for it was in the wrestling, and overcame the Anger. For Man is weak and ignorant, and can do little by his own Power [or Ability], yet he has the Imagination, and the choosing, or the free yielding [to a thing], where then the Maker is ready beforehand, which makes him [to be] according as his Lust [or Desire] is; as it is to be seen by Adam, for when he longed and lusted in the Spirit of this World, there instantly the Maker was present, and made (of an angelical Image) a Man. The heaven.

(2) When I heard these words from the great persons standing before me, Eve and I sighed in our hearts. And the lord, the god who created us, stood before us. He said, "Adam, why were you both sighing in your hearts? Don't you know that I am the god who created you? I breathed into you a spirit of life as a living soul." Darkness came over our eyes.

(6) But when it was allayed again by the Voice of God, then Cain did not know how that came to pass, and set his Murder at Rest, like one who has a secret gnawing Dog sitting in the Dark; yet he proceeded and built his powerful earthly Kingdom, and did not wholly put his Trust in God. For when he saw, that he must seek for his Bread out of the Earth, and must take his Clothing from the Children of the Earth, therefore all his Business lay in the Art of seeking how and which Way he might find, and how possess the Treasure of that which was found, that he might always have enough; because he saw God no more, therefore he did like Israel, who were brought out of Egypt by Moses, and when they saw him not (because he was on the Mount) then they began their Dancing and false Worship of God, and asked after Moses no more.

(109) Dost thou ask why? Behold, I will tell thee, thou art Cain the Lord of the World, for thou hast made thyself so; and now Abel is thy Servant, who is entered into this World as a Guest, yet he stands and desires to be gone out of this World into his native Country, which thou canst not endure; thou pressest him to the Ground, two Manner of Ways, very subtilly, and in Self-Power. First with thy hypocritical false Doctrine, [teaching or preaching] Babel, where he shall and must believe whatsoever thou P prescribest him, without the Spirit of God, that thereby thou mayest but strengthen thy gorgeous fat Kingdom, whereby thou drawest him away from God, into the Spirit of this World, so that he must gape upon thy Prating; and if he does not so, then thou murderest him, as Abel [was murdered.] 1 10. And secondly, thou hast set thyself to be Lord over him, and hast made him thy Slave, and so bravest it over him, as the proud Woman of this World, thou vexest him Day and Night, and consumest his Sweat in High-mindedness, all according to the tFury of the Wrath [or Fierceness.] And so he sticks not only in the Darkness, but [also] in great Misery, Cares, and Perplexity, and seeks Ways to get out of them, and how to come to the Light again, and escape the Driver.

(96) Secondly, also the terrible Work of the Entering into the Fierceness [or Anger] was proved in Cain, for each Kingdom proved its own. And now when Cain went into the Anger, then the Love of God stood in the Center before him, wholly hidden; there Cain (as a Champion) should have broken the Serpent's Head, which he before supposed, that he was the Man that should do it, and would do it in his own Power and Might; and here it Dissolution. was rightly tried, whether it was possible in one's own Self -power (through the Luster of the Father in the Fire) to possess the Kingdom of God.

(2) God, the ruler of the realms and the powers, divided us in wrath, and then we became two beings. And the glory in our hearts left us, me and your mother Eve, along with the first knowledge that breathed in us. And glory fled from us and entered another great realm. Your mother Eve and I didn't come from this realm. But knowledge entered into the seed of great eternal beings. For this reason I myself have called you by the name of that person who is the seed of the great generation or its predecessor. After those days the eternal knowledge of the god of truth withdrew from me and your mother Eve. Then we learned about the inanimate as we did about human beings. We recognized the god who created us. We were not strangers to his powers. And we served him in fear and slavery. After these events our hearts darkened, and I slept in my heart's darkened thought.

(5) And here may be seen very exactly, who was the accuser of Cain, viz. the Blood of Abel, which cried to God from the Earth, and awakened the fierce Anger against Cain; where the Essences of the Soul of Abel, through the deep Gate of Anger, pressed into God, through the Treader upon the Serpent, and so stirred the Root of the Fire in Cain, whereby the Anger was awakened. Here consider what the Sighings of the Righteous, and their Pressing into God (in their being unequally oppressed) can do, how it kindles the Anger of God, as in Cain; whereas then fiery Coals are heaped upon the Driver's [or Oppressor's] Head.

(4) But Cain had Flesh and Blood, and understood not the Meaning of the eternal Death; yet when he was assured from God that none should slay him, he became cheerful again; for the P Essences of his Soul were refreshed again by God's Recalling [him,] for the Door of Grace stood open towards him, he should return, for God would not the Death of a Sinner.

(82) And such also now was their Son Cain; he supposed that he was Lord on Earth; and therefore he grudged that his Brother should have any Thing; especially when he saw that he was accepted before God, that vexed him, and he thought that Abel should come to be Lord on Earth; in his Sacrifice, he regarded not the Fear of God, though he, as a seeming holy Man [or Hypocrite,] sacrificed also; but he regarded only the Region.

(54) Behold, when Adam entered into this World, Pride wrought in him; he would be as God, as Moses says, the Serpent (the Devil) persuaded him to it. He [Man] would have the Third Principle working and flowing in him, and thereby he lost God, and the Kingdom of Heaven. But that it is true that the Pride acted in Man, look upon Cain, he would be Lord alone, he would not that his Brother should be accepted before God, fearing that he should then get the Dominion, and therefore he slew him.