1
The tractate opens as a secret revelatory discourse spoken by Yahushua with Yehudah Iscariot during the days immediately before Pesach.
2
Yahushua is said to perform signs for the salvation of humanity while some walk in righteousness and others in transgression.
3
The twelve are called, and the teaching turns toward mysteries beyond the visible world and the completion of the age.
4
The narrator says Yahushua's appearance was not always stable to the taught ones; at times he was found among them in the likeness of a child.
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Yahushua finds the twelve gathered in Yehudah practicing piety and praying over bread, and he laughs.
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They ask why he laughs at what they consider a righteous prayer.
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He answers that their action is bound to the power they call their elohim rather than to true knowledge.
8
The taught ones become angry, and Yahushua challenges any among them able to bring forth the complete Human to stand before him.
9
All claim strength, yet only Yehudah is able to stand, though he cannot look directly into Yahushua's eyes.
10
Yehudah says he knows Yahushua comes from the immortal realm associated with Barbelo and that the name of the One who sent him is beyond his speech.
11
Yahushua separates Yehudah from the others and promises to disclose mysteries, while warning that Yehudah's path will bring grief and replacement within the twelve.
12
The next day the taught ones ask where Yahushua went.
13
He says he went to another, great and set-apart generation.
14
When they ask how such a generation can exceed them, Yahushua laughs at their assumptions.
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He describes a generation not ruled by the stars, mortal birth, or the angelic powers governing the lower realms.
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The twelve are troubled and cannot answer.
17
The twelve report a dream of a great house with an altar, twelve priestly figures, crowds, and continual offerings.
18
They describe fasting, murder, sexual exploitation, child sacrifice, and other abuses being performed while Yahushua's name is invoked.
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Yahushua says the twelve themselves correspond to the priestly figures in the vision and that the victims are the people led before the altar.
20
The passage attacks religious leadership that uses his name while perpetuating violence and impurity.
21
The stars and angelic powers are portrayed as part of the lower order that completes these acts.
22
The taught ones ask to be cleansed from the sins produced by deception.
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Yahushua answers with images of a fountain unable to quench the whole world's fire, a city-well unable to satisfy every generation, and a single lamp unable to illuminate all realms.
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He tells them to cease struggling against him and says each has a star belonging to his own order.
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He contrasts the corruptible generation with a strong, incorruptible generation not ruled by enemies or stars.
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Yahushua takes Yehudah aside and uses the image of water descending from an exalted mountain to nourish an enduring paradise rather than the corruptible world.
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Yehudah asks what fruit belongs to that generation.
28
Yahushua distinguishes mortal bodies from souls that survive and are taken upward.
29
When Yehudah asks about the rest of humanity, Yahushua says incorruptible fruit cannot be harvested from a defiled field ruled by perishable wisdom.
30
Yehudah then reports a vision in which the twelve stone and pursue him.
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He sees an immeasurably great house surrounded by exalted people and asks to enter.
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Yahushua tells him his star has misled him: no mortal-born person can simply enter that place, which belongs to the set-apart.
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He says Yehudah will become the thirteenth, cursed by other generations and yet raised above them in a different sense, while still not entering the set-apart generation.
34
Yahushua describes a limitless realm beyond angelic sight and human comprehension, associated with a great invisible Ruach that bears no ordinary name.
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A luminous cloud appears, and from it comes the Self-Begotten, a radiant angelic power.
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Four additional attendants arise around the Self-Begotten.
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Realms of light and their luminaries come into being by command, each accompanied by innumerable serving messengers.
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Adamas is placed in the first luminous cloud and Shet appears after his image within the incorruptible generation.
39
The text unfolds a numerical hierarchy of twelve luminaries, seventy-two luminaries, three hundred sixty luminaries, heavens, firmaments, and innumerable heavenly servants.
40
Beyond the higher luminous order, the narrative turns toward Chaos and Hades.
41
Eleleth is associated with the boundary between the higher order and the lower rulers.
42
A fiery, blood-marked ruler named Nebro - interpreted as Rebel and elsewhere identified with Yaldabaoth - appears from a cloud.
43
Another ruler named Saklas appears with him.
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Nebro and Saklas bring forth angelic assistants and a lower hierarchy of rulers.
45
Five principal names are preserved in a damaged list: Yaoth, Harmathoth, Galila, Yobel, and Adonaios.
46
The text identifies these powers with the rule of Hades and Chaos.
47
Saklas commands his angels to form a human after an image and likeness.
48
Adam and Chavvah are formed within this lower creative order; Chavvah is associated with the name Life.
49
Human life in this realm is given a limited span.
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Yehudah asks whether the human ruach dies.
51
Yahushua distinguishes spirits loaned to ordinary humanity from the spirit and nefesh given to the great generation.
52
Knowledge is said to have been given to Adam so the kings of Chaos and Hades would not completely rule those capable of receiving it.
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Yahushua says the stars complete the allotted order until Saklas's term reaches its boundary.
54
The text again denounces sexual corruption, child killing, and religious violence committed in Yahushua's name.
55
A damaged passage refers to the twelve tribes of Yisra'el and generations serving Saklas through error.
56
Yehudah's star is associated with the thirteenth realm.
57
Yahushua laughs at the error of the stars and says the lower rulers and their creations will be destroyed.
58
Yehudah asks about people immersed in Yahushua's name.
59
The surviving answer is badly damaged but connects that immersion with the mortal generation of Adam and with the body that 'bears' Yahushua.
60
Yahushua tells Yehudah that he will exceed the others in one terrible act because he will hand over the human who bears him.
61
The tractate does not present this simply as praise: Yehudah's horn is raised, but so are his anger, his star, and his wandering heart.
62
Yahushua announces that the powers of the lower realm are weakening and that the fruit of the great generation will be exalted.
63
He tells Yehudah to look toward a luminous cloud and the stars around it, identifying the leading star with Yehudah.
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Yehudah looks up, sees the luminous cloud, and enters it; people below hear a damaged heavenly voice.
65
The narrative abruptly returns to the earthly arrest setting.
66
Kohenim and scribes are watching because Yahushua has entered a guest room to pray and they fear the crowd that regards him as a navi.
67
They approach Yehudah and ask what he is doing there as one of Yahushua's taught ones.
68
Yehudah answers as they wish, receives money, and hands Yahushua over.
69
The surviving colophon reads: The Gospel of Yehudah.