All who were brought into the covenant are not to enter into the sanctuary to light its altar, but became closers of the door, as God said, “Who among you will close its door?” and “Thou shalt not light my altar in vain” (Mal. 1 10);(19) but shall observe to do according to the interpretation of the law for the end of wickedness, and to separate from the children of perdition, and to keep aloof from unrighteous gain, which is unclean by vow and ban,(20) and from the property of the sanctuary, and from robbing the poor of the people and making widows their spoil and murdering orphans; and to separate between the unclean and the clean, and to show the difference between the holy and the common; and to observe the Sabbath day as it is defined, and the season feasts, and the fast-day, in accordance with the commandments of those who entered into the new covenant in the land of Damascus; to set apart the sacred dues as they are defined; and that a man should love his neighbor as himself, and sustain the poor and needy and the proselyte, and to seek each the welfare of the other; and that no man transgress the prohibited degrees, but guard against fornication according to the rule; and that a man should reprove his brother according to the commandment, and not bear a grudge from day to day; and to separate from all forms of uncleanness according to their several prescriptions; and that a man should not defile his holy spirit, even as God separated for them (sc. unclean from clean). All who walk in these precepts in perfection of holiness, according to all the foundations of the covenant of God,(21) have the assurance that they shall live a thousand generations. Early in the history of the sect a serious defection occurred. Men who entered among the first into the covenant incurred guilt, like their forefathers, by following their sinful inclinations; they forsook the covenant of God and preferred their own will, and went about after the stubbornness of their heart, every man doing as he pleased (3 10 ff.); the men who entered into the new covenant in the land of Damascus went back and proved false, and turned aside from the well of living waters (19 33 f.). Their names were struck out of the registers of the sect, as were those of such as fell away in later times.