1
I answered and said: Behold, You have made known to me the course of the times and what is appointed after these things. You told me that the retribution spoken by You goes against the nations.
2
Now I know that many have sinned, lived in prosperity, and departed from the world; yet few nations will remain in those times to which the Words You spoke are directed.
3
What profit is in this? Or what is worse than the things we see befalling us while we wait to see?
4
Again I shall speak before You.
5
What profit did those gain who knew You, did not walk in emptiness like the rest of the nations, did not say to the dead, “Give us life,” but feared You at all times and did not abandon Your Ways?
6
Behold, they have been carried away, and You did not show compassion to Tziyon for their sake.
7
If others acted wickedly, Tziyon should have been forgiven through the works of those who served good, and not submerged through the works of those practicing wickedness.
8
Yet who, Yahuah my Adonai, comprehends Your Judgment? Who searches the depth of Your Way, or weighs the burden of Your path?
9
Who can consider Your incomprehensible counsel? Who among those born has ever found the beginning or end of Your Wisdom?
10
For we all have become like vapor.
11
As vapor rises without a heart and returns and vanishes, so is the nature of the sons of adam: they go without their own will and do not know what shall be theirs at the end.
12
The Righteous rightly await the end and depart this dwelling without fear, because with You they have the power of their works, preserved in storehouses.
13
Therefore they leave this world without fear, and in confident joy they await receiving the world You promised them.
14
But woe to us, who are distressed even now and await evils in that time.
15
Yet You know uprightly what You made of Your servants, for we are unable to understand what is good as You formed us.
16
Again I shall speak before You, Yahuah my Adonai.
17
Before the world and its inhabitants existed, You purposed, spoke by the Word, and at once the works of creation stood before You.
18
You said that You would make for Your world a son of adam to govern Your works, that it might be known he was not made for the world, but the world for him.
19
And now I see that the world made for our sake remains, while we, for whose sake it came to be, depart.