Ezra Sutuel

And it came to pass on the third day, as I sat under an oak, behold, a voice came out of a bush opposite me, and said, Ezra, Ezra!

And I said, Here am I, Lord. And I rose up on my feet.

And he said to me, I revealed myself in the bush and spoke to Moses, when my people were in bondage in Egypt;

and I sent him and led my people out of Egypt; and I brought him up to Mount Sinai, and I kept him with me many days.

And I told him many wondrous things, and showed him the secrets of the times, and the end; and I commanded him, saying,

These words shall you publish openly, and these shall you keep secret.

And now I say to you:

The signs which I have shown you previously, and the visions which you have seen, and their interpretation which you have heard—lay them up in your heart, and hide them.

For you shall be taken up from men and shall be henceforth with my Son, and with such as are like you, until the times be ended.

For the world has lost its youth, and the times are near to old age.

Now, therefore, set in order your house, and warn your people; and console their lowly ones, and instruct their wise; and give up henceforth this life corruptible,

and let go from you the burden of men, and let go the thoughts of death, and cast off now the weak nature, and lay aside these thoughts that oppress you, and hasten to remove from these times!

For the evils that you have seen, which have come to pass now—even worse than these shall yet happen after them.

For as the world diminishes through old age, so evils multiply upon the inhabitants of the earth.

For truth withdraws further off, and falsehood approaches; for already lo, there hastens to come the eagle that you have seen in vision.

And I answered and said: Let me speak before you, Lord!

Behold, I go as you have commanded me, and will warn the people who exist; those, however, who are yet to be born—who is to warn them?

For the world is set in darkness, and its inhabitants are without light.

For your law is burnt, and no one knows the works that you have done, or what you are about to do.

If, then, I have found favor before you, send into me, Lord, the Holy Spirit, and I will write all that has happened in the world, from the beginning everything that has been written in your law, that men may be enabled to find the path, and that they who would live at the last may know the way.

And he answered and said to me: Go and gather together your people, and tell them not to seek you for forty days.

But do you prepare for yourself many writing tablets, and take with you Seraia and Daria and Shelemia, together with Helkana and Shiel, these five men, because they are equipped for writing quickly;

and you shall come here and I will light in your heart a lamp of discernment which shall not be extinguished until the things are finished which you shall begin to write.

And when you shall have finished, some of them you shall make public, and some you shall conceal, and shall deliver them to the wise; for tomorrow at this time you shall begin to write.

And I went, as he had commanded me, and gathered together all the people, and said to them:

Hear, Israel, these words.

Our fathers were formerly strangers in the land of Egypt, and were delivered from there.

And they received the law of life and kept it not, which you also after them have transgressed.

And a land was given to you for an inheritance in the land of Zion; but you and your fathers have committed iniquity and have not kept the ways which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you.

But the Most High, who is a true judge, took from you what for a time had been given to you.

And now you are here in distress, and your brethren are further inland removed from you in another land.

If you, then, will admonish your soul, and will discipline your heart; you shall be preserved in your life,

for judgment comes after death, when we live again; and then shall the name of the righteous be revealed, and the works of the ungodly be made manifest.

But let none approach to me nor seek me for forty days.

And I took these five men as he had commanded me, and went into the field, and we remained there as he had told me.

And it came to pass on the morrow, and lo, a voice called to me, and said: Ezra, open your mouth and drink what I give you to drink!

And I opened my mouth and saw, and lo, there came to me a full cup, and it was full as it were of water, and its appearance was like fire.

And I took and drank. And it came to pass when I had drunk it, lo, my heart overflowed with discernment, and my breast poured forth wisdom, and my spirit retained memory.

And my mouth was opened and was not shut.

But the Most High gave understanding to the five men, and they wrote the things that were dictated, in succession, in characters which they knew not; and they sat forty days; they wrote in the day time, and ate bread at night.

But I spoke in the day time and held not my peace by night.

And in the forty days were written ninety-four books.

And it came to pass when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke, saying: The twenty-four books that you have written first, make public, that the worthy and the unworthy may read them;

but the seventy books which remain, keep to deliver to the wise of your people.

For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge.

And I did so.

And thereupon was Ezra caught away and taken to the place of such as were like him, after he had written all these things.

But he was called the Scribe of the Knowledge of the Most High forever and ever.