On the Iniquity of the World

On the Iniquity of the World and It Strives against the Supplications Memra Six On the Iniquity of the World and It Strives against the Supplications The iniquity of the cords of the earth is proclaimed, O man. Come, O earth-dwellers, hear and be astonished how it devours. It devours much for the sake of the iniquity of the age, which is great, And there is no generation that has increased its cords like the generations. In the generations, that which is written concerning the Hebrews was completed, That they went out and did not wish to receive the signs of discipline. Fiercely the Creator pursues with all the shame of the chase, And without respite, the thought of his cords burns in harshness. He pursues with love like a father who pursues his sons, And the iniquity of the inclination does not consent to the discipline of his love. Violently nature pursued with the wages, And it did not wish to receive the yoke, the easy yoke of the service of its Lord. Like a wild ass when it rages against its own self, it creates its own self, And it endures in counsel and breaking the yoke of the command of its words. Bestially the beast of the separation of the covenant pursued, And better than the beast, the words of its wise ones were inscribed. In the likeness of dogs, they barked their thoughts in the streets, And the master of the house did not distinguish the guest from the stranger. A dog distinguishes the face of its master and fawns upon him, But the heart did not distinguish nor does it distinguish those who are of the house.

The iniquity of the world is proclaimed, O man. Come, O discerning one, and see how the cords of the earth are stretched like weavers and the threads of speech. The giver of speech raised his hand and struck the great one. Great is the command of that which is like his command, and firmly I spread my hands for the supplications. With the cords of her distress, she clothes the creature that is within the soul, and reveals and shows it to the inhabitants of earth and heaven. Heaven and earth were witnesses to the supplications, and through their rebellions they taught the iniquity that was hidden. With the hardness of the cords, the eloquent and the deaf openly cried out, and like palms they weighed the iniquity that was full of wrong. Like a spectacle was the rebellion of our days, and the evil of the supplications was better than the cords. The evil of the cords was more abundant than the signs that are without number, and the heavy heart did not rest from the weight of its iniquity. And the world did not rest, as if it were a wonder to the knowledgeable ones. The cords were stretched like a beast without a bridle. Like a beast, the divine sign stretched forth, and the one that spoke from the wise one was completed. With the rod and the goad, the wise one drove the foolish herd, and one reproach overcame the deaf and the eloquent. Like a beast, she stretched herself for the signs of the world, and she was not subdued by the evil of her supplications. The palm of the hand was bent, and the height of her spirit was not humbled; she struck the disease, and her vehemence was not weakened.

Death swallowed up and brought the guilty one into the abyss of Sheol, and your heart did not tremble from the intoxication of the full draughts. It fell like it is written, the corpses of man in the likeness of dung, and the height of your pride did not fall from its tumult. The earth bound you and did not give you fruits and seeds, and the desire of your worthlessness did not cut off from its rebellion. The air changes the forms of the changes that are hidden in it, and the heat of your wrath did not change from what it is. Thunderbolts and lightnings shook the earth without measure, and the creator's creation did not tremble from its hardness. Hail shattered the clusters and the figs along with all their fruits, and your joy did not continue, which is of wrath. There were signs of the terrible ones from the signs, and they did not seek your destruction, which is the cause of their order. There were locusts and caterpillars that you did not see, and you did not ask why your vines were laid waste. The voracious ones devoured your food, the mad locusts and the unproductive ones, and you did not investigate how the giver of food gave. It consumed your provisions and destroyed your labor, and your lives perished, and there is none among you who can stand before you and help you. Woe to us, lest your race be finished in the harshness of the cords, and no remnant of life remain for us among the earths. Woe to us, lest these become your hunters, the fire of Sodom and the abyss that swallowed the house of Dathan.

They are the evil seeds of these bitter things that you have sown, and they witness to the pains which the earth has swallowed, which are in you. In the pains of the earth I am buried, for I have grown weary in you, and behold, I am prepared to set my course before the hearers. Come, hearers, hear the history of the seeds of your pains, and be moved and be troubled at the spectacles of this evil generation. This evil generation has corrupted more than all generations, and because of this, its threads have grown weary more than all generations. The iniquity of the world saw that sign which all saw, and turned the face of its goodness away from the congregations. It shows the faces of wrath towards them, not wrathful, and the earth trembled and was near to becoming a ruin. The iniquity of the world shook the whole creation with its wickedness, and nothing remained that was not shaken in its drunkennesses. The whole world, the vision of its drunkennesses deceived, and it separated from them the heavenly and the earthly. The drunken spectacle of the iniquity of the world, the spirits saw, and they marvelled and were strengthened to proclaim his wonders in the movements of the air. In their wantonness, the beautiful beholders grew weary and were extinguished, and they put on the armor of the humility of their lowliness. That command which set my course over your service, it commanded my course to lay a hand upon the thread of your generations. The king above all wrote the decree of the threads, and gave it to the clouds of the heavens to bring against you.

Like a bird, its fledglings flew before the command, and quickly they completed the work of the small members of the household. The Apophasis, which over the members of the household, saw the terrible one, and terribly they accomplished the will of their sender. On the roots of the spirit, they placed the body of the living ones of the body, and with the keys of hunger and thirst, they loosened the flesh. The combs of pains wept in their hands, not bodies, and they combed the body with the sharpness of their combs. Like a robber before the judge, they hung the people, and began to lament from the harshness of the cords that were upon him. He swallowed and was consumed entirely, like a moth, and wept and lamented, and the servants of the king did not wish to hear him. The king over all commanded the people to love iniquity, so that they might destroy their shamelessness without loss. Without loss, they destroyed the treasures of the heavens, and you do not cease from your rebellion until the end. In the multitude of iniquities, they saw also that they would be destroyed, and upon them the hand that was in them hung from above their loins. They know that they will not return from their errors, and because of this, they put on wrath against their pursuers. The debt of your debts has increased greatly beyond measure, and behold, your pursuers are coming to you with the small ones of the great one who sent them to you. A bond of debts that man owes beyond measure, and without paying it, behold, your pursuers are exacting it without grace.

Tyrannically he executed the will of the household in the sin of sins. Upon those harsh ones, also the demonstrations from all generations. That he was not concerned, like the guilty, to repay the head. Behold, they repay also the great ones of the oppressions of the great ones. The great ones are pursued according to their wickednesses. And again they are equal, like tyrants who have tyrannized much. Much they have tyrannized, and the witness of their nature testifies that they have tyrannized much. And you, do not the demons tyrannize the tyranny that is like our own? The demons tyrannize and rejoice that they have tyrannized, and they know that they have succeeded. They did not consider the sin, and they do not accuse the hirelings. And that they did not consider, as if it were fitting for the knowledges, behold, they drive us, the silent ones, with their lamentations. And that they did not wish to know themselves in the judgment of themselves, behold, a sign of shame points to us, which is ashamed of its burning. To the shame of his sign he gives to our judgment the chief of judges, who knows that he also has a shame that cannot be justified. Good, shamefully, he burned in the judgment of tyranny, and he decreed judgment according to the evils that are committed. Within the furnace of his scrutiny he placed the iniquity, and he established much, he placed cords against its weight. To the limbs of iniquity he distributed cords over the iniquitous, and each one of them follows him in the cord that was fitting for him. For the love of money he uprooted it with the lord of poverty, so that it might not again change and bear fruits of greedy money.

For the sake of the remission of glory, she cut it with the saw of humility, so that it might not be possible to weave a man in the web of glory. For iniquity, she cut it with the iron of necessity, lest the thicket of her mind run through her whole body. For arrogance, she placed upon it the brand of madness, so that the custom of the beast of the hour might not be disturbed and fall. For falsehood, she bound it with the chain of a single word, so that it might not be accustomed to speaking superfluities. With finality, she cast into her mouth the bit of silence, lest man be able to speak with the good things of her adornment. For pride, she stripped it with lacks that cannot be lacked, so that the life of man might no longer be hidden from its concealments. For audacity, she struck it with the blow of the dimming of the eyes, so that it might not look contemptibly upon the door of its own. For wrath, she silenced it with the voices of the powers of the judgment of the day, so that it might have no place to run violently. All the passions she drove out wisely with the wisdom of her cords, and wisely she shows her power in the things that are to be endured. From the demonstrations of the power of everything, and the love of everything, and she counsels the end upon everything that is something. She moves everything from what it was, hunting everything, and nothing remains that is not healed by the passions of man. For man is in the dwelling of man, and in his evil he bears evils, filled and silent.

Because of it, the earth swallowed up the hard sinews, and her womb dried up from the wombs of seeds and fruits. Because of iniquity, the birth of the wicked ones of the seed could not be healed, and when she was giving birth, she was a barren one and a cutter. In the barrenness of man, the earth became a non-dividing plow, and her womb ceased from the cultivation of the deposit that was placed in her. In her, the neighboring elements, water and air, were mixed, and they did not run properly on the straight path of their changes. Without order, the silent ones ran, who were to be ordered, and they disturbed the world that was to be ordered from the beginning. The iniquity of man taught the unreasoning ones to run on a path full of a measure without equality. That man disturbed the order of the whole creation, and in his folly he loosened the bond of height and depth. In him, height and depth were bound in one equality, and because of him, everything changed from what it was. His anger provoked the force that has nothing to provoke it, and he cast the world into a harsh anger without remedy. Without remedy was the rebellion of the days, and the evil of man did not swallow up evil like ours. But it sought from the pure and from the writer, and if there is a generation that casts it, it is bitter like our generation.

The first ones swallowed up the hard sinews, as it is written, and it showed that iniquity is the cause of the sinews that they swallowed. It told us, it told us in every form of the species of sinews, and it did not reveal to us that iniquity is the cause of the hardness of our sinews. This is what is hard beyond everything for those who are to be told, that when they are told they do not know the cause of the sinew. Iniquity concealed its cause from our mind. Iniquity became a veil for itself from understanding, and is not ashamed when it is scattered in the likenesses. It cast into its eloquence the speech of silence, and nullified its existence from the practice of beautiful things. It did not give to its discernment to discern the beautiful, and when it is discerning, it cut off the habit of the indiscernible. This habit made it a blind one without understanding, and it swallowed sinews and did not desire to know the cause of its sinews. It swallowed hard sinews, itself, swiftly, its existence, and as it swallowed, sinews were to it as if not sinews. How many sinews and those who are told did not count and perceive, even the blows and the strikers stood in amazement. How many were the tremors and the quaking of the earth, and mountains fell, and the heart did not tremble at the voice of the silent earth's parturition. Islands fell and became tombs for their inhabitants, and the height of the spirit was not humbled from the perfection.

The earth was rent from the causes of every form, and wickedness fashioned, nor did its fashioning cease from the sinews. The trees dried up and the leaves withered and the seeds dried up, and the moist sinew of our vines did not dry up. The locust devoured the oil, the gnat struck the wasp, and its own nature was not ashamed of what it is. The strong whirlwinds raged in summer and winter, and the hard press of our vines conquered the fruit. The air taught and the rain dripped upon hailstones, and your iniquity did not change the course of its wickedness. The silent ones trembled at the voices of thunders and the sight of lightnings, and your sluggishness was not roused from its sleep. The winds sculpted the forms of signs on the face of the height, and the fruit was seen and the fruit vanished like a dream. They were true and your sins were true and they were laughing, and even our sinews were not revealed to your deceptions. To your deceptions the forces of the height showed the fruit, and the fruit was seen and the fruit was not seen in the firmament. Your causes were all that were in height and depth, and you did not ask what is the cause of their changes. And because you did not wish to seek in the time of the forms of the sinews, the Creator hinted to his servants of the hardness of your sin. The watchers took up the command, your brothers, over your wickedness. And they stretched out the heart to the hard sinew that is like the heart.

Without pain your heart in the garment of the tongue that devoured for them. They struck the sinews upon their limbs and upon their thoughts. And this one saw for the wantonness of the beautiful shepherds, that there was no woe, the skin that swallowed the place that swallowed. He was the fire of all that is, giving, and he was not swallowed. How much did the place of the fearful swallow, and behold it is made wise. He in his standing tasted the taste of hardness of the sinews, and he came to know how to keep the order of his speech. In this astonishment they swallowed their limbs with severe pains, and behold the body of the fool is consumed in the pits. In this opportunity the sinews ran and dragged you, and they did not cease and will not cease from the blows of summer and winter. In all their forms the sinews run to the idleness of the heart, and when the sign does not come, death comes and swallows from the end. Outside the order, death perishes from them, meaning, and without loss it consumes the body like a charmer. Like a robber, it pursues every man after his race, and the captivity of his prey overcomes the captivity of those who take man from man. They took man, and death took the captive, the bound captive, and the captivity of the hirelings overcomes the captivity and the captive. The captivity of iniquity overcame the captivity of man and death, and this one that opened the way of the captivity of the two captivities. Woe to the people from the robbers who have made him bitter and consume him, and he is not hidden from his helpers.

Woe to you who are a laughingstock and a mockery before all creatures, and you make the greatness of your mockery known to the eloquent and the magicians. Woe to you, for evil has gone forth in the four directions, and there is no creature that does not have a story of your iniquity to tell. The name of your evil goes forth, demons who are evil from you. And when the good of the evil is good, they wonder at your evils. And the wonder of the evil ones is upon that which you have made evil. Beautifully they have done your evils, and your pains have multiplied. Beautifully they pursue after your life with hunger and pains, and they hide from iniquity, being pressed, they conceal your iniquity. Your iniquity pursues pain with hunger and pains, and it arranges for you that you not be set free to pursue iniquity. And if it is sought what is the cause of the harshness of your sinews, and why your life's portion is diminished and made to tremble. Because David sacrificed you from all your sacrifices, and there is no time that is fitting and beautiful for the conduct of your life. Why do your priests sacrifice the sacrifices of the year in their labors, and there is no change of blood that would set its order to the true order? For everything is mixed, everything is confused, everything is heaped up, and the world is made like a house of madmen against its inhabitants. But a great lament is worn by creation over your evils, and it weeps for you as over a dead one whose lament is bitter. Bitterly, bitterly does the earth lament for you, and if it could, it would cry out like a mother over her beloved.

Woe to you, eloquent mouth like the eloquent ones, with the voice of lamentations you were weeping for the evil sacrifice. Woe to you, the magicians were stirred up in the pollutions of your soul, they did not cease from the dances over your humiliation. It is good that you bowed down to the ground like a writing tablet, and the earth that held your soul was changed into mockery and shame. Like a whirlwind, your evils scattered in the evil sacrifice, and you sent forth your dispersions like trees in the winter wind. In the likeness of leaves after the good things from the mouth of man, and they were men as if not men in their deeds. With hard afflictions, the dying were consumed until death, and they became dark and withered from the pangs of the pains of famine. The sword of famine went forth against your people, rich in sin, and they became desolate and cast down like beasts without restraint. Your hunt was completed, that which is written, the hunt of the ancients, in the likeness of dung, the corpses of the sons of man fell. Behold, the bodies of the sons of man fell without restraint, and man walked above man without shame. Famine seized the door of mercy in the face of mercy, and man trampled upon man as if not man. Famine bent the knee of the just man by the power of its cruelty, and began to mock the just man and the writing tablet. Because of famine, the wicked nature forgot its nature, and enslaved itself to eat food that was not customary.

without measure they ate flesh of the human person. Woe to you, how has it befallen you, O magicians full of pollutions! Woe to you, that perhaps at the sacrifice the end of the world is completed, and in the completions all that is written about the end. It is written that they ate children in their sacrifices of famine, and there were wicked ones, lovers of the belly, devouring the belly. Behold, this happened in the evil sacrifice: they ate children, their offspring, and also their twins. With base prices, fathers gave beloved children, and they devoured, full of afflictions, and died in convulsions. By the hardness of bread, the mother of her beloved son took, and she wiped her eye and darkened her face from sorrow. Alas for that devourer whose sacrifice is a nature without custom, and a nature that has perverted the natural orders that were placed in it. Alas for the magician who is bound entirely by his own affection, who sacrifices his own by the affection of the devourer of one hour. Alas, what has befallen the body, the head of all bodies, and he has been cast into the pits of base ones from all. Alas for the magicians who humble themselves in the name of their humiliations, that he might be low, and they shone lowly ones over his lowness. Alas for the one high above all and glorious above all in his name and rank, whom pains trampled and sorrows humbled and death swallowed. Alas for the one who held the whole world by his body and soul, who became a castaway from everything because of his iniquity.

because of his iniquity they eat one another, magicians and sorcerers. And behold, they are bound in grievous fetters of every change. Severe famine and bitter pains and terrible death, and there is no respite in the place of rebellion and for rebellion. Like terrible waves, one after another, they come, and they do not give you even a little rest or peace. The voice of lamentation thunders in the earth at all times, and like a house of mourning, our conduct is made night and day. Weeping in the streets, lamentation in the houses, mourning in all your regions, and the mouth wails, and tears of the eyes, and the hands are stretched out. Weeping and wailing, everyone hears from every mouth, and there is no human being who does not hear the sound of woe. Woe, woe, one person says to another concerning the human person, whose good fortune has been plundered, and his mournings have multiplied, and also the sighs. The sound of sighs is heard at all times from his companion, and there is no one who is not mixed up in the grief of the human person. Grief for everyone, and anguish for everyone, and weeping for everyone, and there is no face that is bright and joyful towards his companion. Every human person is troubled at the sight of the gloom of everyone, and everyone marvels at the calamities that he thinks in the earth. Concerning the calamities, everyone asks the one who meets him, "Is there perhaps a place of rest from the calamities?" Every people is filled with calamities upon calamity, and the head of kings and the humble bow before the calamities.

The rich man groans, the poor man groans, the slave and his master. And he goes out to seek after the circuit of the marketplaces of his life. After the circuit, the wanderers and the non-wanderers went out. And his law, hunger, for the great order of the house of one to another. Hunger taught the free citizens circuits. And behold, they are rolled about and ask for alms like wanderers. The nations of wandering are many in the land. And there is no time that is not filled with the sound of the circuit. They mix grievous sounds with a man before his companions, so that they weep and wail, making their hearers weep with them. Like beasts, each one howls with his companions, and they roar and cry out in the likeness of wolves and foxes. Nor does the sound of their groans resemble a man, for hunger changes the words and the tones. Grievous sounds, the evil one changes upon his marketplace, so that it becomes a reproach to him who hears the tones of his words. Without shame, he cries out and asks with boldness and impudence, and he swears and vows that unless he receives, he will not go away. What has your evil nature done, bitter nature, that it has uprooted from you harsh freedom and sown impudence? Harsh freedom, hard, hard with its yoke, and behold, the wonder of its deficiency, hunger, for the one who hungers. Hunger has made the free woman not a daughter of free men, and she became a maidservant to serve the marketplace of the body.

The marketplaces of the body, while it is in the circuit of the marketplaces of the body, and the composition of voices began to ask for justice. A great tumult was made in it by iniquity in the evil generation, that the voices of the oppressed might ask for justice. A great tumult was made in it by iniquity in the evil generation, that the voices of the oppressed might ask for justice. David came to the beauties of the body and the soul. The natural beauties that were set in it, and the evil iniquity, the pursuer of the wicked, came and destroyed. Iniquity is the cause of these things that are and are not. And it became a generation of hunger and sorrows and deaths. It became that which cut off the good earth from good things, and did not give us fruits and seeds as is customary. It became that which brought forth locusts and worms and also the cricket, and changed the air and brought down hail instead of dews. There is no evil that it did not do from the beginning, and there is no loss that befell the world that it did not cause. In iniquity it would have been fitting for you to be disciplined, and not in our God who made sorrows and free ones. It was fitting for your freedom to be directed to its non-freedom, because what was it, a daughter of free ones or not a daughter of free ones? And without distinction, like a divider, it directs itself, and sorrows follow it, a harsh following of losses.

The losses of your soul are grievous in this time, and there are no scales that can raise its weight like your losses. Small is the loss in every generation compared to your loss, and the threads of the garment of your soul bear witness how much you have lost. The kinds of your signs are unspeakable in human language, and the mouth of the spirit is too small to tell them as they are. Only the one who can speak the spirit can say them, and how and how much can the tongue that arranges the spirit manage? Even I, who wished to speak the spirit, said, "Would that I could speak them," but my mind was not sufficient to encompass their limit. Their multitude made me seek to enter into their time, and I marveled greatly and was greatly perplexed by that which I sought. The riders of words, my thoughts rode on the path of words, and I wished to follow the words to the deeds. The kinds of deeds that were in your land I wished to recount, and what I saw, how many times my speech was cut short. At the beginning of its words, my speech also stood in fear, lest it slacken and not reach the end. I saw the extension of words that was prepared for composition, and I was greatly cut off from the composition of the kinds of words. For the powers of words concerning the signs, when they are spoken, and the account of the severity of the threads is not easy to relate.

The thread of the threads, the weaver of the garment of the word that said the saying of the threads, and my bones, my thoughts, to recall the garment that is full of threads. For the sake of words, you sought to heal the threads that are to be woven, that they might not be rent for the sight of the beholders who see what is beautiful. The beautiful sights, you saw that your course is to be greatly rent, and the image of the form of the threads that are darkened in it became a scar. Come, beholders, beautiful sights, see the demonstrations of how much it devours and how much it consumes before your threads. For the wild beast, what are your thoughts before our demonstrations, that it subdues her and she is not subdued until the end? As for the wild beast, the threads are heavy for her to run, and how much she devoured, again she was strengthened to be rent. The spear of hunger cast pain into the mouth of your wickedness, and your wickedness, her course did not cease from her evils. With the rocks of stones, she placed your body before the demonstrations, and she devoured much and consumed much as if she did not feel. She was not a feeler of pain at the time of pains, and her nature was lost, the nature of the one formed in mortality. Until death, pains brought him to be woven, and the soul that had fled, her breath departed from within her dwelling. In the temple of the body, the soul was seated as mistress, and pains demolished the temple of her love, and she fled from it. And if the soul fled from you at the time of your threads, know that also the demonstrations that you devoured are many.

The end of life is death for those who are born. It is a manifest thing that it is harsh, a stroke from the strokes. And again, he says, "Hear, O one who hears, it is death." But hear that there is a death that is worse than death. Worse is death than all deaths that were and will be, for they see death and die a stifled death. The sight of death they see in the pursuit that is upon their limbs, and before the likeness of the dead, in the sight of the harshness of their sinews. Hunger and pains were gentle guides to a fearful death, and it runs, swallowing like a beast, after the life of the hour. In every form, death swallows up the mortality of our bodies, so that no remnant of life remains from our humanity. All remedies have passed over the firm substance of life, and again the desire of life fails and the body perishes. Life without corruption is firmly established by its own nature from the Creator, and in vitality it lives and consumes the wasted body. And were it not that it is a guardian that keeps us by the power of its vitality, the race of man would be as if not man. As if not man, they are in the pursuit of all their corruptions, and the eloquent and the mute are astonished and confounded at our ruin. At our ruin, heaven and earth weep and lament, but sin alone is not aware—sin in the ruin of our race. Upon our seasons, the conduct of summer and winter is disturbed, and the great order of the months of the year is confused and troubled.

Because of the evil of the world, the groans of mourning and weeping are for you, as for one who is dead, whose mourning is bitter. Bitter is the mourning of the day of your afflictions, beyond all mournings. And bitter is the day of your death, beyond the days of harshness and trials. In trials and pains, the days of your life have perished, and there is not in your lifetime a day that is free from afflictions. From your youth, great pains have grown up, as it is written, and with your upbringing, fevers have settled upon your limbs. From the beginning of the beginning of your race, pains have bent you down, and like a guide, afflictions have been for the discipline of your life. Life is set for you in the earth from the day you were, and you have not ceased from the harsh scourges of chastisement. Evil neighbors were for you in the land of your dwelling, and they plundered your possessions and enslaved your life with harsh labor. In the captivity of iniquity, which brought your race to ruin, the multitudes of your race and made servants of the desires of their deeds. Like exiles, your fathers went out from Paradise, and they dwelt in a land full of thorns, pains, and death. The captivity of waters surrounded them also from this, and woe to the captivity and to the destruction without remedy. Without remedy, the captivity of the water of death destroyed you, and it swept away the dust of the covering of your bodies and buried it in the earth. Captivity delivers captivity from one to another, and it did not reward you for dwelling in the place of your habitation.

The first captivity carried off from the place of the covenant of the time of the end, and the second from the inheritance of the king of the ages. The other captivity carried off from Babylon by division, and cast it to the west on the four quarters of sea and land. Three captivities, each worse than the other, carried off the body, and one from the body freed the body from servitude. An evil custom grew old in the body from the beginning, and the servitude of slaves is easier for it than freedom. Not the freedom of the labor of slaves does the free man love, nor does he rejoice that he might raise his head from servitude. This custom makes the hard tendons of Belial, and it is dissolved in the bonds of body and soul. In his body and soul he increases sin and increases swallowing, and he stretches out every man to hard tendons and is not ashamed. With him the hardness of his tendons walks in all generations, and especially in our own times more than in the ages. Hard tendons from all sides are now wound around us, and they swallow us and are not sated with our evils. Without measure are our evils and our drunkennesses, and without end is the greatness of the fortune of our wantonness. Harder were our tendons than all tendons in all our generations, and there was no opening between one and another at a sign. A hidden sign will cast you to the time of your life, and will teach you to make a pact with your evils.

They made a great trench and placed around the people troops of the people, and they scattered the people with sharp arrows of hunger and thirst. Like a camp, pains surrounded from all sides, and no body escaped being struck by the blows. The whole people became one wound without healing, and its nature turned away from cures and no longer recovered. Hunger and pains dissolved his flesh and crushed his soul, and they cut off his life from sustenance and from life. There is no life in the life of a man, nor any whole; and if there is, it is not, for there is nothing that sustains their life. Sustenance that sustains life consumes life from the mouth of life, and hangs the life of the living one before his father. At the end of his life, every man looks with longing at life, and rejoices and fears that perhaps his end has drawn near. In the evening he says, "Would that morning would come," and when morning comes, he asks his companions if the sun has set. With the day he runs in the course that is upon the wheels, from which the hours of the night and day are woven, his silence is great. Woe to the wretched one, how the man is crushed, and how his soul's pains and his body's sorrows are multiplied. Woe clings to the wretched one from all generations, and he is more wretched in our generation than all generations. In our generation, every man is wretched and groans, and woe is great, and the troop is large, and the silence is great.

The great gap of the visions of the eyes and the hearing of the ears: pains pursued and the pursuit of fire, the two together. The human being endured a bitter formation, the captivity of hunger and the captivity of fire, which is worse than hunger and worse than all evils. Harsh is the captivity of the sons of Hagar, even more than hunger, and bitter was the blow that was among them, more than diseases. To strike the serpent resembles the blow of the sons of Abraham, and there is no opportunity to strike the serpents, and for them there is none. Woe, then, that he was not called by the name of Abraham among the Egyptians, for behold, they are being tormented and do not know in this contest. Woe, that righteous one did not approach that mad one; they would have ceased from their stumbling blocks. Woe, that they had a secondary name of the memorial of Abraham; they would have been corrected by the cruel ones like their father. The call of the wild one called them, the Creator, to the head of their generations, for he knew that he could not preserve the order of fire. The life of the human being is a mouth that is corrected by the son of Egypt, and he raises from him the name of Abraham, lover of fire. Lover of fire and lover of his Lord is Abraham; therefore it is right that pains become for those who seek pain. Abraham did not beget evil ones and cruel ones; evil ones are those who did not tread the path of the love of Abraham.

Also the one who judges all judges is equal in word, that you said that Abraham did not approach Hagar the maidservant. No, the fathers are not able to preserve freedom of the soul; freedom of the soul is that which makes sins and iniquities. To the judges of Abraham you said these things, and the one also says that if the Hagarenes leave off, other torments come to what? Why do the holy living ones not become those who pursue Hagar, that by his plunder of the world, the plunder of the victors to the Ishmaelites? Why from Abraham does the destruction of the Amorites flee, that they made Assyria a mother of kings like a righteous one? Not that the judge judges the fathers who pursue, but the evil inclination that separates the two good things. The evil inclination that pursues Hagar judges every hour, and especially the people who sanctify the animal-like lives. Not by nature do the animals live like the holy one, and behold the demonstration of their lack of reason in nothing that they did. They did not do the sins of those who pursue Hagar as black as they did, and the Amorites did not do the destruction that they destroyed. Their destruction passed to the southerners and the westerners, and there is no evil that equals the evil that they did in the earth. In these, the fibers swallowed up the earth full of iniquity, and from the iniquities that are worse than them came our rebellion.

In the hand of the wicked who are worse than the wicked, the Creator runs after the one who is pursued. When iniquity is added to iniquity, it becomes a message to him. Three tribes iniquity raised against evil: the Ishmaelites, the Tomorites, and the Qadishites. Three sects devoured their souls, filling them with excess from the three lineages that are more contemptible than they. The Creator is angry, for he has increased our iniquity through iniquities, and he is grieved that our lordship was like a grief. For the excess, that command which rules over all has increased, and wisely it has decreed grief for our hirelings. Come, then, and confess this knowledge that the grief of griefs has pressed, and present to it the gates of the glory of the generations and the ages.