Apocryphal books (Old Testament); Enoch (Biblical figure); Ethiopic book of Enoch -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
LXXXIII. 1. And now, my son Methuselah, I will show thee all my visions
which I have seen, recounting them before thee. 2. Two visions I saw
before I took a wife, and the one was quite unlike the other: the first
when I was learning to write, the second before I took thy mother,
(when) I saw a terrible vision. And regarding them I prayed to the Lord.
3. I had laid me down in the house of my grandfather Mahalalel, (when) I
saw in a vision how the heaven collapsed and was borne off and fell to
the earth. 4. And when it fell to the earth I saw how the earth was
swallowed up in a great abyss, and mountains were suspended on
mountains, and hills sank down on hills, and high trees were rent from
their stems, and hurled down and sunk in the abyss. 5. And thereupon a
word fell into my mouth, and I lifted up (my voice) to cry aloud, and
said: ‘The earth is destroyed.’ 6. And my grandfather Mahalalel waked me
as I lay near him, and said unto me: ‘Why dost thou cry so, my son, and
why dost thou make such lamentation?’ 7. And I recounted to him the
whole vision which I had seen, and he said unto me: ‘A terrible thing
hast thou seen, my son, and of grave moment is thy dream-vision as to
the secrets of all the sin of the earth: it must sink into the abyss and
be destroyed with a great destruction. 8. And now, my son, arise and
make petition to the Lord of glory, since thou art a believer, that a
remnant may remain on the earth, and that He may not destroy the whole
earth. 9. My son, from heaven all this will come upon the earth, and
upon the earth there will be great destruction.’ 10. After that I arose
and prayed and implored and besought, and wrote down my prayer for the
generations of the world, and I will show everything to thee, my son
Methuselah. 11. And when I had gone forth below and seen the heaven, and
the sun rising in the east, and the moon setting in the west, and a few
stars, and the whole earth, and everything as †He had known† it in the
beginning, then I blessed the Lord of judgement and extolled Him because
He had made the sun to go forth from the windows of the east, †and he
ascended and rose on the face of the heaven, and set out and kept
traversing the path shown unto him.
LXXXIV. 1. And I lifted up my hands in righteousness and blessed the
Holy and Great One, and spake with the breath of my mouth, and with the
tongue of flesh, which God has made for the children of the flesh of
men, that they should speak therewith, and He gave them breath and a
tongue and a mouth that they should speak therewith:
2. ‘Blessed be Thou, O Lord, King,
Great and mighty in Thy greatness,
Lord of the whole creation of the heaven,
King of kings and God of the whole world.
And Thy power and kingship and greatness abide for ever and ever,
And throughout all generations Thy dominion:
And all the heavens are Thy throne for ever,
And the whole earth Thy footstool for ever and ever.
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