1 Enoch 99

Trouble is coming to you who live without God, and who take pride in lying and praise it. You will die, and no happy life will be yours.

1Woe to you who work godlessness, And glory in lying and extol them: Ye shall perish, and no happy life shall be yours.

Note"Woe to you" is not an expression of sympathy but a formal announcement of doom. It is the cry raised over a corpse, turned against people who are still alive and still doing the thing being condemned. Chapters 94 to 100 of this book are built almost entirely out of a chain of these announcements, alternating with blessings on the righteous. Also, "godlessness" here does not mean doubting that God exists, an idea barely available in this period. It means treating God with contempt in practice: ignoring the law, exploiting the weak, lying without shame.

2Trouble is coming to those who twist the words of what is right, and break the law that lasts forever, and turn themselves into what they were not: sinners. They will be trampled underfoot on the earth.

2Woe to them who pervert the words of uprightness, And transgress the eternal law, And transform themselves into what they were not into sinners: They shall be trodden under foot upon the earth.

Note"The eternal law" means the law of Moses, understood in this book not as one nation's legal code but as something fixed into the order of the world from the beginning, as permanent as the courses of the sun and stars. To break it is therefore presented as an offense against the structure of creation itself, not merely against a rule.

3In those days get ready, you who are righteous, to lift up your prayers as a reminder. Set them down as evidence before the angels, so that the angels may set the sin of the sinners as a reminder before the Most High.

3In those days make ready, ye righteous, to raise your prayers as a memorial, And place them as a testimony before the angels, That they may place the sin of the sinners for a memorial before the Most High.

NoteThree legal and ritual images are packed together here. A "memorial" is a technical term from sacrifice: the portion of an offering burned so that its smoke rises and brings the worshiper to God's attention. A "testimony" is evidence formally entered in a court case. The angels function as the court officers who carry both up. In this book prayers are not simply heard; they are filed, and they work as evidence against the people the righteous are praying about. "The Most High" is an ancient title for God, common in Hebrew and Aramaic writings of this period, and it is the title this book uses most often.

4In those days the nations will be stirred up, and the families of the nations will rise up on the day of destruction.

4In those days the nations shall be stirred up, And the families of the nations shall arise on the day of destruction.

Note"Families of the nations" means clans or tribal groupings reckoned by descent. The phrase echoes the list of peoples in Genesis 10, where the nations of the world are set out as families traced back to Noah's sons. The picture is of the whole mapped world of peoples convulsed at once.

5In those days the poor will go out and carry off their own children, and they will abandon them, so that their children will die because of them. Yes, they will abandon their children who are still nursing, and not come back for them, and will show no pity to the ones they love.

5And in those days the destitute shall go forth and carry off their children, And they shall abandon them, so that their children shall perish through them: Yea, they shall abandon their children (that are still) sucklings, and not return to them, And shall have no pity on their beloved ones.

NoteThis is siege and famine language. In a starving city parents pick up their children to flee, then abandon them on the road because they cannot carry them and survive. Prophetic writing uses the abandonment of nursing infants as the standard measure of the worst conceivable suffering, the point at which the strongest human bond gives way. A nursing child in this world might be as old as two or three.

6And again I swear to you, you sinners, that sin is made ready for a day of bloodshed that will not stop.

6And again I swear to you, ye sinners, that sin is prepared for a day of unceasing bloodshed.

NoteEnoch swears repeatedly through this section of the book. An oath was the strongest guarantee a speaker could give, calling down consequences on himself if what he said proved false. Here the device is used to back a threat rather than a promise, so the effect is: this is as certain as anything I could pledge my life on.

7And those who worship stones, and carved images of gold and silver and wood and stone and clay, and those who worship unclean spirits and demons, and every kind of idol, worshiped without knowledge, will get no help of any kind from them.

7And they who worship stones, and grave images of gold and silver and wood 〈and stone〉 and clay, and those who worship impure spirits and demons, and all kinds of idols not according to knowledge, shall get no manner of help from them.

Note"Stones" here are standing stones, single upright stones set up at a shrine and treated as the god's presence or dwelling. The list then moves to carved images, statues shaped from metal, wood or clay. "Impure spirits and demons" has a specific meaning in this book: chapters 15 and 16 explain that when the giants born to the fallen angels and human women died, the spirits that came out of their bodies remained on earth as demons. "Worshiped without knowledge" means worship offered in ignorance of what is actually being worshiped.

8And they will turn away from God because their hearts are foolish. Their eyes will be blinded by the fear in their hearts, and by the visions they see in their dreams.

8And they shall become godless by reason of the folly of their hearts, And their eyes shall be blinded through the fear of their hearts And through visions in their dreams.

NoteDreams were a recognized method of seeking divine information in the ancient world, interpreted by specialists much as omens were read from livers or stars. This passage puts dream visions in the same category as idols: a false channel of knowledge that produces fear rather than understanding. "Their eyes shall be blinded" is the standard image for losing the capacity to judge truly, not for physical blindness.

9Through these things they will turn away from God and be full of fear. For they will have done all their work in a lie, and will have worshiped a stone. So they will die in a moment.

9Through these they shall become godless and fearful; For they shall have wrought all their work in a lie, And shall have worshipped a stone: Therefore in an instant shall they perish.

10But in those days, blessed are all who take in the words of wisdom and understand them, and who watch the paths of the Most High and walk in the path of his righteousness, and do not turn away from God along with those who have turned away. For they will be saved.

10But in those days blessed are all they who accept the words of wisdom, and understand them, And observe the paths of the Most High, and walk in the path of His righteousness, And become not godless with the godless; For they shall be saved.

NoteThe verb behind "observe the paths" carries both senses at once: to watch a road closely so as not to lose it, and to keep to it. The rendering preserves the watching sense, but the keeping sense is equally present in the original.

11Trouble is coming to you who spread evil among your neighbors. For you will be killed in Sheol.

11Woe to you who spread evil to your neighbours; For you shall be slain in Sheol.

NoteSheol is the underworld, the shadowy place where the dead go, common to everyone in older Hebrew thought and not a place of punishment. "You shall be slain in Sheol" is deliberately jarring: being killed is what puts a person in Sheol, so the line says that death will not be the end of the reckoning. This book is among the earliest writings to treat the realm of the dead as a place where the wicked and the righteous are already held apart and dealt with differently.

12Trouble is coming to you who use dishonest and false measures, and to those who bring bitterness on the earth. For that is what will completely destroy them.

12Woe to you who make deceitful and false measures, And (to them) who cause bitterness on the earth; For they shall thereby be utterly consumed.

NoteMerchants weighed goods against stone weights on a balance and sold grain and oil by fixed measures. Keeping a heavy set of weights for buying and a light set for selling, or a shallow measure for pouring out, was a standard and hard to detect fraud, and the law condemns it repeatedly. The point is that the cheating is invisible to the victim, who has no way to check.

13Trouble is coming to you who build your houses by the crushing labor of other people, and all your building materials are the bricks and stones of sin. I tell you, you will have no peace.

13Woe to you who build your houses through the grievous toil of others, And all their building materials are the bricks and stones of sin; I tell you ye shall have no peace.

NoteThe charge is building with labor that was forced, unpaid or taken from people who could not refuse. The image of the finished house as made of "the bricks and stones of sin" means that the wrong is not an incident attached to the house but the material substance of it: every course of the wall is somebody else's stolen work.

14Trouble is coming to those who reject the measure and the everlasting inheritance of their fathers, and whose souls chase after idols. For they will have no rest.

14Woe to them who reject the measure and eternal heritage of their fathers And whose souls follow after idols; For they shall have no rest.

Note"The measure" is obscure and can be read two ways. It may be the measuring line by which a family's share of land was marked out, which would make the "everlasting inheritance" the ancestral landholding that was not supposed to be sold out of the family. Or it may mean the standard, the received rule of conduct handed down from the ancestors. The rendering keeps the word open because the original does.

15Trouble is coming to those who do what is not right, and who help oppression along, and who kill their neighbors, until the day of the great judgment.

15Woe to them who work unrighteousness and help oppression, And slay their neighbours until the day of the great judgement.

Note"The great judgment" is a fixed term in this book for the single final assize at the end of the age, when God settles accounts with angels and humans together. The phrase "until the day of the great judgment" marks a limit: the oppression runs on unchecked right up to that point, which is part of what the writer is complaining about.

16For he will throw down your honor, and bring pain on your hearts, and stir up his burning anger, and destroy you all with the sword. And all the holy and righteous ones will remember your sins.

16For He shall cast down your glory, And bring affliction on your hearts, And shall arouse His fierce indignation And destroy you all with the sword; And all the holy and righteous shall remember your sins.

Note"Glory" here means public standing, honor, the regard a person commands from others, not a shining light. To have it thrown down is to be publicly humiliated. "The holy and righteous" is likely a double group: in this book "the holy ones" usually means angels, while "the righteous" are faithful human beings, so the line has both witnessing the record of what was done.