(97) If not, then shall this spirit also be condemned to the eternal prison; and they should give over their lying and blaspheming of God; or else they are worse than the wild Heathen or Pagans, who know nothing of God, who notwithstanding live in God, and shall sooner possess the kingdom of heaven than many of these blasphemers of God shall, which I shall also demonstrate in its proper place.

(81) And those who practice righteousness shall die on account of the deeds of men, And be taken away on account of the doings of the godless.'

(5) In those days ye shall make your names an eternal execration unto all the righteous, b. And by you shall ⌈all⌉ who curse, curse, And all the sinners ⌈and godless⌉ shall imprecate by you, 7c. And for you the godless there shall be a curse.

(97) Woe to you who work unrighteousness And deceit and blasphemy: It shall be a memorial against you for evil.

(100) Woe to you who work godlessness, And glory in lying and extol them: Ye shall perish, and no happy life shall be yours.

(95) Ye have committed blasphemy and unrighteousness, And have become ready for the day of slaughter, And the day of darkness and the day of the great judgement.

(101) Woe to you, ye sinners, on account of the words of your mouth, And on account of the deeds of your hands which your godlessness as wrought, In blazing flames burning worse than fire shall ye burn.

(12) (But Ahura will speak His rebuke, for) as to those doctrines which (such) men may be (basely) delivering (repelled) by the holiest action, (and galled by its sacred truth) God hath said: Evil (are they! Yea, unto these He hath said it) who have slain the Kine's life by a blessing (and have cursed her while they offered to help her ), men by whom Grehmas are loved above Righteousness, and the Karpans, and the Throne of those who have wished for the Demon of lies (as their deity and friend ).

(100) Through these they shall become godless and fearful; For they shall have wrought all their work in a lie, And shall have worshiped a stone: Therefore in an instant shall they perish.

(12) Thus one of the Wicked curses the other, who has caused him to commit such Wickedness; the Inferior his Superior that has given him Offence, [and been a Stumbling-block to him;] the Laity curse the Clergy or Priests, who have given them evil Examples, and seduced them with false Doctrine; the wicked Curser, Swearer, and Blasphemer, bites and gnaws his Tongue, which has so murdered him; the Mind beats the Head against the Stones; and the Ungodly hide themselves in the Caves and Holes of the Earth, before the Terror of the LORD; for there is great Quaking and Stirring in the Essences of the Anger and fierce Wrath of the LORD; and the Anguish breaks the Heart, and yet there is no Dying; for the Anger is stirring, and the Life of the Ungodly flows up in the Anger. There the Ungodly curses the Heaven and the Earth that bore him, as also the Constellation [or Stars] that led him, and the Hour of his Birth; all his Uncleanness stands before his Eyes, and he sees the Cause of his Horror, and condemns himself; he cannot look upon the Righteous for very Shame; all his Works stand in his Mind, and in the Essences cry, Woe to him that did them, they accuse him; the Tears of those he has afflicted and oppressed are like a fiery stinging Serpent; he desires Rest or Ease, but there is no Comfort, Despair rises up in him, for Hell terrifies him.

(20) And as those who maltreat property insult the owners, and those who maltreat soldiers insult the commander, so also the ill-usage of His consecrated ones is contempt for the Lord.

(15) And there will be great wrath from the Lord against the children of Israel, because they have forsaken His covenant and turned aside from His word, and pro- voked and blasphemed, inasmuch as they do not observe the ordinance of this law ; for they have treated their members like the Gentiles, so that they may be removed and rooted out of the land. And there will no more be pardon or forgiveness unto them [so that there should be forgiveness and pardon] for all the sin of this eternal error. ' Apparently such apostasy was widely spread when our author wrote. f \

(109) And wait ye indeed till sin has passed away, for their names shall be blotted out of the book of life and out of the holy books, and their seed shall be destroyed for ever, and their spirits shall be slain, and they shall cry and make lamentation in a place that is a chaotic wilderness, and in the fire shall they burn; for there is no earth there.

(8) And therefore that creature is a loathsome abomination before the total God, and before all his creatures, and must stand in eternal enmity and ignominy or shame before God, and before all the creatures.

(100) Woe to them who pervert the words of uprightness, And transgress the eternal law, And transform themselves into what they were not [into sinners]: They shall be trodden under foot upon the earth.

(33) For to no man who doeth so in Israel is it permitted to remain alive a single day on the earth, for he is abominable and unclean.

(4) But to those miserable men, witness to the Lord by blood seems a most violent death, not knowing that such a gate of death is the beginning of the true life; and they will understand neither the honours after death, which belong to those who have lived holily, nor the punishments of those who have lived unrighteously and impurely? I do not say only from our Scriptures (for almost all the commandments indicate them); but they will not even hear their own discourses.

(63) And we pass away from before His face on account of our works, And all our sins are reckoned up in righteousness.'

(99) Woe to you who write down lying and godless words; for they write down their lies that men may hear them and act godlessly towards (their) neighbour.

(23) And those who have escaped will not return from their wickedness to the way of righte- ousness, but they will all exalt themselves to deceit and wealth, that they may each take all that is his neighbour's, and thev will name the great name, but not in truth and not in righteousness, and they will defile the holy of holies with their uncleanness and the corruption of their pollution.