1
He answered and said to me: Therefore, at that time I established a Covenant for them and said, “Behold, I have placed before you life and death,” and I called the heavens and the earth as witnesses against them.
2
For he knew his time was brief, but the heavens and the earth remain through every time.
3
Yet after his death they sinned and transgressed, though they knew they had the Torah to reprove them, the light in which nothing could err, the luminaries that testified, and Me, who judges everything that exists.
4
But do not occupy your being with these things, nor be burdened concerning what has been.
5
For the end of the time—whether of affairs, prosperity, or disgrace—is sought, not its beginning.
6
If a son of adam prospers at his beginning but is disgraced in his old age, he forgets all the prosperity he had.
7
And if a son of adam is distressed at his beginning but prospers at his end, his disgrace is no longer remembered.
8
Hear again: if, through all this time from the day death was decreed upon those who pass through it, every one prospered at first but at his end was corrupted into emptiness, everything would have been futile.