Sefer Chanokh Ri’shon — Maṣḥafa Hēnok — Chapter 108

Another book which Chanokh wrote for his son Metushelach and for those who will come after him, and keep the law in the last days. 2. You who have done good shall wait for those days till an end is made of those who work evil, and an end of the might of the transgressors. 3. And wait you indeed till sin has passed away, for their names shall be blotted out of the book of life and out of the set-apart 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. 4. And I saw there something like an invisible cloud; for by reason of its depth I could not look over, and I saw a flame of fire blazing brightly, and things like shining mountains circling and sweeping to and fro. 5. And I asked one of the set-apart mal’akhiym who was with me and said to him: ‘What is this shining thing? for it is not a heaven, but only the flame of a blazing fire, and the voice of weeping and crying and lamentation and strong pain.’ 6. And he said to me: ‘This place which you see - here are cast the spirits of sinners and blasphemers, and of those who work wickedness, and of those who pervert every thing that the Sovereign has spoken through the mouth of the prophets - (even) the things that shall be. 7. For some of them are written and inscribed above in the heaven, in order that the mal’akhiym may read them and know that which shall befall the sinners, and the spirits of the humble, and of those who have afflicted their bodies, and been recompensed by Elohim; and of those who have been put to shame by wicked men: 8. Who love Elohim and loved neither gold nor silver nor any of the good things which are in the world, but gave over their bodies to torture. 9. Who, since they came into being, longed not after earthly food, but regarded everything as a passing breath, and lived accordingly, and the Sovereign tried them much, and their spirits were found pure so that they should bless His name. 10. And all the blessings destined for them I have recounted in the books. And He has assigned them their recompense, because they have been found to be such as loved heaven more than their life in the world, and though they were trodden under foot of wicked men, and experienced abuse and reviling from them and were put to shame, yet they blessed Me. 11. And now I will summon the spirits of the good who belong to the generation of light, and I will transform those who were born in darkness, who in the flesh were not recompensed with such honour as their faithfulness deserved. 12. And I will bring forth in shining light those who have loved My set-apart name, and I will seat each on the throne of his honour. 13. And they shall be resplendent for times without number; for righteousness is the judgement of Elohim; for to the faithful He will give faithfulness in the habitation of upright paths. 14. And they shall see those who were born in darkness led into darkness, while the righteous shall be resplendent. 15. And the sinners shall cry aloud and see them resplendent, and they indeed shall go where days and seasons are prescribed for them.’ Provenance Ledger Controlling continuity witness The complete Geʽez textual tradition, represented in R. H. Charles’s critical Ethiopic edition collating twenty-three manuscripts. Status: ATTESTED as the only complete ancient-language preservation of the 108-chapter work. Earlier direct Semitic witness Aramaic fragments from Qumran preserve portions of the Iriyn, Luminaries, Dream-Vision, and Instruction materials. They control local wording where extant, but they do not supply a complete continuous book. Status: ATTESTED, fragmentary. Ivrit layer Ivrit controls genuine names, roots, scriptural parallels, and passages whose Semitic structure is best explained through Ivrit. It is not used to invent a lost continuous Ivrit manuscript. Status varies by coordinate: ATTESTED ROOT, FUNCTIONAL CORRESPONDENCE, or UNRESOLVED. Greek and Latin Fragmentary Greek and Latin readings are retained only as Hod and Yesod comparison witnesses. They may preserve an older local reading, but neither language governs the House ontology, names, offices, or English output. English coordinate scaffold R. H. Charles’s public-domain translation and numbering were used to prevent omission and to expose his own conjectural symbols. This reconstruction removes archaic English control, restores House names and categories, and preserves unresolved material in brackets. Major unresolved nodes The language allocation of individual sections remains mixed and cannot be made absolute from the surviving evidence. The Parables lack the same Qumran attestation as several other collections. The relationship of chapters 106-107 and chapter 108 to the preceding collections is preserved as a transmission seam. ‘Head of Days’ remains distinct from later harmonizing title substitutions. Named heavenly offices are not collapsed into one undifferentiated pantheon category. KIDAN–B’ERIT decision rule IVRIT + GEʽEZ → ROOT → FUNCTION → RELATION → BEST-PRESERVED FORM → CROSS-LANGUAGE BRIDGE → SEMITIC CORROBORATION → FRESH ENGLISH. English remains the gloss; English never becomes the source.

English · translation