Chapter 93

 

 

1And now let me exhort you, my children, to love righteousness, and to walk in it; for the paths of righteousness are worthy of acceptance; but the paths of iniquity shall suddenly fail, and be diminished. 2To men of note in their generation the paths of oppression and death are revealed; but they keep far from them, and do not follow them. 3Now, too, let me exhort you who are righteous, not to walk in the paths of evil and oppression, nor in the paths of death. Approach them not, that you may not perish; but covet, 4And choose for yourselves righteousness, and a good life. 5Walk in the paths of peace, that you may live, and be found worthy. Retain my words in your inmost thoughts, and obliterate them not from your hearts; for I know that sinners counsel men to commit crime craftily. They are not found in every place, nor does every counsel possess a little of them. 6Woe to those who build iniquity and oppression, and who lay the foundation of fraud; for suddenly shall they be subverted, and never obtain peace. 7Woe to those who build up their houses with crime; for from their very foundations shall their houses225 be demolished, and by the sword shall they themselves fall. Those, too, who acquire gold and silver, shall justly and suddenly perish. Woe to you who are rich, for in your riches have you trusted; but from your riches you shall be removed; because you have not remembered the Most High in the days of your prosperity: 8You have committed blasphemy and iniquity; and are destined to the day of the effusion of blood, to the day of darkness, and to the day of the great judgment. 9This I will declare and point out to you, that he who created you will destroy you. 10When you fall, he will not show you mercy; but your Creator will rejoice in your destruction. 11Let those, then, who shall be righteous among you in those days, detest sinners, and the ungodly.