1734 verses about Life

and it gave you Adam, a body without a soul? yet it was the workmanship of your hands, and you did breathe into him the breath of life, and he was made living before you.

And you led him into paradise, which your right hand did plant, before ever the earth came forward.

Nevertheless now have I asked you but only of the fire and wind, and of the day, things wherethrough you have passed, and without which you can not be, and yet have you given me no answer of them.

And when I heard these things I fell upon my face, and said to him, It were better that we were not here at all, than that we should come here and live in the midst of ungodliness, and suffer, and not know wherefore.

and we pass away out of the world as grasshoppers, and our life is as a vapor, neither are we worthy to obtain mercy.

Then he answered me, and said, if you be alive you shall see, and if you live long, you shall marvel; for the world hastens fast to pass away.

So he answered me, and said, Go your way to a woman with child, and ask of her when she has fulfilled her nine months, if her womb may keep the birth any longer within her.

He answered me, and said, As for the tokens whereof you asked me, I may tell you of them in part: but as touching your life, I am not sent to show you; for I do not know it.

But if the Most High grant you to live, you shall see that which is after the third kingdom to be troubled; and the sun shall suddenly shine forth in the night, and the moon in the day:

And he said to me, You can not. And I said, Wherefore, Lord, or whereunto was I born? or why was not my mother’s womb then my grave, that I might not have seen the travail of Jacob, and the wearisome toil of the stock of Israel?

And I said, How have you said to your servant, that you will surely make alive at once the creature that you have created? If therefore they shall be alive at once, and the creature shall sustain them: even so it might now also support them to be present at once.

And she also shall answer you, They that be born in the strength of youth are of one fashion, and those who are born in the time of age, when the womb fails, are otherwise.

The beginning of a man is his hand, and the end of a man is his heel; between the heel and the hand seek you nothing else, Esdras.

and the children of a year old shall speak with their voices, the women with child shall bring forth untimely children at three or four months, and they shall live, and dance.

For immediately there came forth great and innumerable fruit, and manifold pleasures for the taste, and flowers of inimitable color, and odors of most exquisite smell: and this was done the third day.

Upon the fifth day you said to the seventh part, where the water was gathered together, that it should bring forth living creatures, fowls and fishes: and so it came to pass,

that the dumb water and without life brought forth living things as it was bidden, that the peoples might therefore praise your wondrous works.

Then did you preserve two living creatures, the one you calledst Behemoth, and the other you calledst Leviathan:

whoso then should desire to go into the sea to look upon it, or to rule it, if he went not through the narrow, how could he come into the broad?

Another thing also: There is a city built and set in a plain country, and full of all good things;

and there is one only path between them both, even between the fire and the water, so small that there could but one man go there at once.

If this city now be given to a man for an inheritance, if the heir pass not the danger before him, how shall he receive his inheritance?

For the entrances of the greater world are wide and sure, and bring forth fruit of immortality.

If then those who live enter not these strait and vain things, they can never receive those that are laid up for them.

Now therefore why you disquiet yourself, seeing you are but a corruptible man? and why are you moved, whereas you are but mortal?

For God straitly commanded such as came, even as they came, what they should do to live, and what they should observe to avoid punishment.

And I answered, I said even then, O Lord, and I say now: blessed are those who are now alive and keep the statutes ordained of you.

For an evil heart has grown up in us, which has led us astray from these statutes, and has brought us into corruption and into the ways of death, has showed us the paths of perdition and removed us far from life; and that, not a few only, but well near all that have been created.

For it were better that the dust itself had been unborn, so that the mind might not have been made therefrom.

Let the race of men lament and the beasts of the field be glad; let all that are born lament, but let the four-footed beasts and the cattle rejoice.

For what does it profit us, that we shall be preserved alive, but yet be afflicted with torment?

The second way, because they can’t now make a good returning that they may live.

Now this is the order of those who have kept the ways of the Most High, when they shall be separated from the corruptible vessel.

The first order, because they have striven with great labor to overcome the evil thought which was fashoned together with them, that it might not lead them astray from life into death.

and Elijah for those that received rain; and for the dead, that he might live:

He answered me, and said, This present world is not the end; the full glory remains not therein: therefore have they who were able prayed for the weak.

For what profit is it for all that are in this present time to live in heaviness, and after death to look for punishment?

For what profit is it to us, if there be promised us an immortal time, whereas we have done the works that bring death?

And that the glory of the Most High shall defend them which have led a pure life, whereas we have walked in the most wicked ways of all?

And that there shall be showed a paradise, whose fruit endures without decay, wherein is abundance and healing, but we shall not enter into it,

Then he answered and said, This is the condition of the battle, which man that is born upon the earth shall fight;

For this is the way whereof Moses spoke to the people while he lived, saying, Choose you life, that you may live.

For you are come here without your will, and depart when you would not: for there is given you no longer space than only to live a short time.

O Lord, that are over us, suffer your servant, that we may pray before you, and give us seed to our heart, and culture to our understanding, that there may come fruit of it, whereby every one shall live that is corrupt, who bears the likeness of a man.

For you are alone, and we all one workmanship of your hands, like as you have said.

Forasmuch as you quicken the body that is fashioned now in the womb, and give it members, your creature is preserved in fire and water, and nine months does your workmanship endure your creature which is created in her.

you have commanded that out of the parts of the body, that is to say, out of the breasts, be given milk, which is the fruit of the breasts,

that the thing which is fashioned may be nourished for a time, and afterwards you shall order it in your mercy.

And you shall mortify it as your creature, and quicken it as your work.

If therefore you shall lightly and suddenly destroy him which with so great labor was fashioned by your commandment, to what purpose was he made?

attend to my words, for so long as I live I will speak, and so long as I have understanding I will answer.

Forasmuch as the husbandman’s seed, if it come not up, seeing that it has not received your rain in due season, or if it be corrupted through too much rain, so perishes;

likewise man, which is formed with your hands, and is called your own image, because he is made like to you, for whose sake you have formed all things, even him have you made like to the husbandman’s seed.

Then answered he me, and said, Things present are for those who now be, and things to come for such as shall be hereafter.

For to you is paradise opened, the tree of life planted, the time to come is prepared, plenteousness is made ready, a city is built, and rest is allowed, goodness is perfected, wisdom being perfect beforehand.

sorrows are passed away, and in the end is showed the treasure of immortality.

but they which be created have themselves defiled the name of him that made them, and were unthankful to him which prepared life for them.

For like as of all that is made in the world, the beginning is evident, and the end manifest;

For as many as in their life have received benefits, and yet have not known me;

and, behold, I lay as one that had been dead, and my understanding was taken from me; and he took me by the right hand, and comforted me, and set me upon my feet, and said to me,

For at the first he shall set them alive in his judgement, and when he has reproved them, he shall destroy them.

Yet is it better for one to be in peril and to come into these things, than to pass away as a cloud out of the world, and not to see the things that shall happen in the last days. And he answered to me, and said,

Know therefore, that they which be left behind are more blessed than those who are dead.

Your life have you ordered in wisdom, and have called understanding your mother.

for you shall be taken away from men, and from henceforth you shall remain with my Son, and with such as be like you, until the times be ended.

Now therefore set your house in order, and reprove your people, comfort the lowly among them, and instruct such of them as be wise, and now renounce the life that is corruptible,

But if I have found favor before you, send the Holy Spirit to me, and I shall write all that has been done in the world since the beginning, even the things that were written in your law, that men may be able to find the path, and that they which would live in the latter days may live.

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

Who framed man, and put a heart in the midst of the body, and gave him breath, life, and understanding,

For their virtues, then, it is right that I should commend those men who died with their mother at this time in behalf of rectitude; and for their honors, I may count them happy.

Reasoning is, then, intellect accompanied by a life of rectitude, putting foremost the consideration of wisdom.

And this is contained in the education of the law; by means of which we learn divine things reverently, and human things profitably.

As pleasure and pain are, therefore, two growth of the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots of these passions.

For at the time when God created man, He implanted within him his passions and moral nature.

And He gave a law to this mind, by living according to which it will maintain a temperate, and just, and good, and manly reign.

I would counsel you, old man, before your tortures begin, to taste the swine’s flesh, and save your life; for I feel respect for your age and hoary head, which since you have had so long, you appear to me to be no philosopher in retaining the superstition of the Jews.

It seems senseless not to enjoy what is pleasant, yet not disgraceful; and from notions of sinfulness, to reject the boons of nature.

Mouth! you shall not pollute my old age, nor the full stature of a perfect life.

It would be disgraceful if we should live on some short time, and that scorned by all men for cowardice,

Let my blood be a purification for them, and take my life in recompense for theirs.

O harmonizer with the law, and sage devoted to a divine life!

And, what is most wonderful, though an old man, though the labors of his body were now spent, and his fibres were relaxed, and his sinews worn out, he recovered youth.

O blessed old age, and reverend hoar head, and life obedient to the law, which the faithful seal of death perfected.

they who believe that to God they die not; for, as our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they live to God.

Why withdraw ourselves from a most sweet life, and deprive ourselves of this pleasant world?

Now this one, having endured this praiseworthy death, the third was brought along, and exhorted by many to taste and save his life.

By the blessed death of my kindred, and the eternal punishment of the tyrant, and the glorious life of the pious, I will not repudiate the noble brotherhood.

for having been born and reared to the same end, we are bound to die also in behalf of the same cause.

And one and all, looking on each other serene and confident, said, Let us sacrifice with all our heart our souls to God who gave them, and employ our bodies for the keeping of the law.

In which these brothers having remained an equal time, and having been formed for the same period, and been increased by the same blood, and having been perfected through the same principle of life,

The mother, when two things were set before here, religion and the safety of her seven sons for a time, on the conditional promise of a tyrant,

rather elected the religion which according to God preserves to eternal life.

Nor, should I die, shall I have a son to bury me. But with such a lament as this the holy and God-fearing mother bewailed none of them.

Remember that through God you⌃ obtained existence, and have enjoyed it.

With these arguments, the mother of seven, exhorting each of her sons, over-persuaded them from transgressing the commandment of God.

And they saw this, too, that they who die for God, live to God; as Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchs.

For at that time virtue presided over the contest, approving the victory through endurance, namely, immortality, eternal life.

The tyrant was the opposite; and the world and living men were the spectators.

through which, also, they now stand beside the divine throne, and live a blessed life.

And these my children, having arrived at maturity, their father died: blessed was he! for having sought out a life of fertility in children, he was not grieved with a period of loss of children.