衣索比亞馬加比一書 第 36 章

Do not boast, you Macedonians, and do not exalt your neck, you Amalekites, for there is the Lord who shall avenge Himself upon you.

For you exalt yourselves up to heaven, and you shall go down into Sheol.

And in the day when Israel first entered the land of Egypt, in the kingdom of the Medes and the Moabites, He said, Do not boast, for it is not fitting that you should set yourselves against the honour of the Lord.

And you also, O Ishmaelite, son of the bondwoman, why do you stretch out your neck against that which is not yours? Do you not remember that the Lord shall judge you in the day of judgment, as when He rose up to judge the earth?

In that day you shall be requited according to the work of your hands. Why do you exalt your heart and stretch out your neck? says the Lord who rules over all.

And I too will contend with you, even as you contended with those who were not yours; and to whichever place I sent you, you become one who does evil according to his own desire.

And likewise I too will deal with you, says the Lord who rules over all. But you also, if you do good and love what I love, I too will hear you in all that you ask Me.

And I will do your will, if you do My will, and your enemy shall not withstand you; and I will bless your labour and your seed and your children.

And I will bless the flocks of your oxen and your sheep, and I will bless all to which you put your hand, if you walk in My commandment and do what I love, says the Lord who rules over all.

But if you do not do My will and do not walk in My commandment, then My judgment shall overtake you, all this My judgment which was foretold before; and you shall not be able to escape from My wrath which comes upon you at all times, because you were not chastened by My commandment and did not walk in My judgment.

And you did not prefer that which I prefer, and you despised My praise and My worship, though I created you out of nothingness.

And I gave you honour and glory among the men who are under you, that you might do all that you desired, to kill and to make alive, to build and to pull down, to honour and to bring low, to exalt and to abase; it is yours.

If you do the will of the Lord and walk in His commandments, He will love you, that you may rejoice with Him in His kingdom, and be a portion together with those who inherited the holy city.

For He said, If you bear with Me, I will give them honour and favour to inherit, and I will make them rejoice in My house of prayer, and they shall be chosen and accepted like an offering of sacrifice, says the Lord who rules over all.

Do not grow weary of doing good and of the way of salvation, that you may pass over from death into life.

And those who persevere in doing good, the Lord protects them in all good, that they may be His servants, like Job, whom the Lord kept from all evil.

And like Abraham, whom He delivered when they would have slain him, the kings; and even as He delivered Moses from the hand of Pharaoh, and from the hand of the Canaanites among whom Abraham dwelt, while they wearied his soul evening and morning, day and night, that they might bring him down to their idols.

But he endured, while they would draw him to their graven images, dragging him along.

And he, while he refused them, feared the Lord who created him; for Abraham was faithful, the Lord whom he trusted from his youth.

And he did not lessen his worship of the Lord until the day of his death, for he loved the Lord exceedingly, and did not transgress His commandment until the day of his death; and he charged his children to keep the commandment of the Lord.

And they too did not transgress His commandment, even as their father did; the seed of Abraham, His servants, did not transgress the commandment of the Lord, Isaac and Jacob, concerning whom the Lord spoke, saying to His angels, I have a friend.

Upon the earth, Abraham My beloved, and Isaac My child, and Jacob in whom My soul is well pleased, through whom I am glorified, says the Lord who rules over all.

And the children of Israel provoked them all the more continually; yet He bore with them and fed them with manna in the wilderness.

And their garments did not wear out, and their shoes did not split, because they ate the manna, which is the bread of understanding.

Yet their heart was continually far from the Lord, and they had no hope of salvation, for from of old they were workers of evil.

And they were not like their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who pleased the Lord by the goodness of their life; but they became like a crooked bow, and continually provoked Him with their idols and on their hills and on their mountains, and ate in the mountains and in the forests and in the valleys.

And they slaughtered and sacrificed and made merry with the work of their hands, and ate the slaughtered offering and drank the wine of their feast, and danced and made merry with the demons.

And the demons made pleasant to them all their dancing and their play, and all their drunkenness and fornication without measure, and greed and oppression, in which the Lord takes no pleasure.

And they sacrificed to the graven image of Canaan and to Baal and to the Maria of Midian, and to the graven images of the Philistines, Dagon and Apollo, and to Artemis and to Rasyon.

And to all the gods of the nations who rule round about them, all of them, even as the nations did, by what they saw and what they heard; and all their play and their dancing and their feasting that the nations do.

And likewise the people of Israel do, who say, We worship the Lord, and yet do not do His law and His commandment which Moses told them in the law, that they should keep the commandments of the Lord and depart from the worship of idols;

and that they should not worship strange gods apart from the God of their fathers, who fed them with the grain of the fields and brought them up upon the heights of the land, and satisfied them with honey out of the rock, and fed them with manna.

And He did not withhold from them what they desired and what they wished, for He is their God, and He feeds them with what they desire.

But as for them, they did not cease to provoke the Lord; and when He made them rejoice, they forgot the Lord.

And when He chastised them, they cried out to Him, and He delivered them from the distress that had come upon them; and again they would openly rejoice and dwell for many days.

And then they would turn back their heart and return to provoke the Lord as of old; and He would raise up against them nations round about them, to slay them and enslave them and afflict them.

And again they would turn and repent and cry out to the Lord their God.

And He would teach them, not for their own sake, but for the sake of their fathers, with whom He swore and established His covenant, with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who from of old pleased the Lord by the goodness of their life.

And those who loved Him and kept His commandment, He loved them, that He might multiply their seed like the sand of the sea and like the stars of heaven.

And like the sand of the sea are the souls of sinners, of whom He spoke, who at the resurrection of the dead shall enter into the sea of fire, even of the children of Israel.

But the souls of the righteous are like the bright stars above the heavens, of the seed of the children of Israel; for the Lord said to Abraham, Look at the heavens by night and number the stars of heaven, if you are able to number them. And even so your seed, the righteous, shall shine like the stars in the kingdom of heaven.

And again He said to him, Look upon the sea and the bank of the river, and behold what is in the sand, and number it, if you are able to number it; and even so your seed who shall go down into Sheol at the resurrection of the dead.

And Abraham believed in the Lord, and on account of this it was counted to him for righteousness; and his hope found fulfilment upon the earth, and after his wife Sarah had grown old, she bore a son, Isaac.

And again in the heavens he shall find a kingdom because of his faith, for he believed that the dead shall rise, and that those who did good shall enter into life everlasting.

And those who did evil shall enter into the judgment that is for ever, at the resurrection of the dead; but the righteous who did good shall reign with Him for ever and ever.

And those who did evil shall be judged for ever and ever. Amen and amen.