Enoch
Enoch 103
An oath sworn to the righteous
1 Now, therefore, I swear to you, the righteous, by the glory of the Great and Honored and 2 Mighty One in dominion, and by his greatness I swear to you.
I know a secret,
And have read the heavenly tablets,
And have seen the holy books,
And have found written in them and inscribed concerning them:
3 That all goodness and joy and glory are prepared for them,
And written down for the spirits of those who have died in righteousness,
And that good of many kinds will be given to you in return for your labors,
And that your lot is far beyond the lot of the living.
4 And the spirits of you who have died in righteousness will live and rejoice,
And their spirits will not perish, nor the memory of them from before the face of the Great One,
To all the generations of the world; so fear their insults no longer.
Woe to you, sinners
5 Woe to you, you sinners, when you have died,
If you die in the wealth of your sins,
And those who are like you say about you:
“Blessed are the sinners: they have seen all their days.
6 And how they have died in prosperity and in wealth,
And have not seen tribulation or murder in their life;
And they have died in honor,
And judgment has not been executed on them during their life.”
7 Know that their souls will be made to go down into Sheol
And they will be wretched in their great tribulation.
8 And into darkness and chains and a burning flame, where there is grievous judgment, your spirits will enter;
And the great judgment will be for all the generations of the world.
Woe to you, for you will have no peace.
Do not say this of the righteous
9 Do not say of the righteous and good who are alive:
“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.
10 And we have been destroyed, and have found no one to help us, not even with a word;
We have been tortured and destroyed, and have not hoped to see life from day to day.
11 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 on us.
12 They have had dominion over us, those who hated us and struck us;
And to those who hated us we have bowed our necks,
But they had no pity on us.
13 We desired to get away from them, so that we might escape and be at rest,
But we found no place to flee to and be safe from them.
14 And we complained to the rulers in our tribulation,
And cried out against those who devoured us,
But they paid no attention to our cries
And would not listen to our voice.
15 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 who devoured us and scattered us and murdered us; and they concealed their murder, and did not remember that they had lifted up their hands against us.”