Chapter 22

1From there I proceeded to another spot, where he showed me in the west a great and high mountain, of hard rock, and having four hollow places in it. 2They were deep, and wide, and very bare. Three of them were dark, and one of them was lit and had a spring of water in the middle of it. And I said, "How bare these caverns are, and such deepness and darkness a sight to behold!" 3Then Raphael, one of the holy angels, who was with me, responded and said to me, "These hollow places exist to gather together the spirits, that is, the souls of the dead. In them they are sorted apart. Here, all the souls of human beings are collected. 4And in these places their confinement is appointed, until the days of their judgment, and until the distinction and dividing of the time at which that great judgment will be upon them." 5 I observed a dead man who was pleading, and his cry was advancing as far as heaven, and pleading there. The Book of Enoch the Prophet 26 6And I inquired of Raphael, the angel who was with me, and said to him, "This spirit pleading, whose is it, whose cry advances so, and pleads until it reaches heaven?" 7And he answered me saying, "This is the spirit which came from Abel, whom Cain the brother murdered. And Abel will plead concerning him, until his seed perishes from the face of the earth, until his seed vanishes from the seed of humankind." 8Then I asked about all the enclosing of the pits, by which one was separated from the other. 9And he answered me, saying, "Those three departments were made to separate the spirits of the dead, and the spirits of the righteous are separated by a chasm into this one, which has a spring of water, and light in it. 24 10And then this one was made for sinners when they die and are buried in the earth and judgment has not happened to them during their lifetime.25 11Here their spirits are separated for this horrible torment, until that great day of judgment, of punishment, and the torment of being cursed for ever. This was the due repayment for their spirits. He will bind them there for ever. 12And then this division was made for the spirits of those who have complaints, who have disclosures concerning their destruction, when they were slaughtered in the days