5. Walk in the paths of peace, that you may live, and be found worthy.
Retain my words in your inmost thoughts, and obliterate them not from
your hearts; for I know that sinners counsel men to commit crime
craftily. They are not found in every place, nor does every counsel
possess a little of them.
6. Woe to those who build up iniquity and oppression, and who lay the
foundation of fraud; for suddenly shall they be subverted, and never
obtain peace.
7. Woe to those who build up their houses with crime; for from their
very foundations shall their houses[255] be demolished, and by the sword
shall they _themselves_ fall. Those, too, who acquire gold and silver,
shall justly and suddenly perish. Woe to you who are rich, for in your
riches have you trusted; but from your riches you shall be removed;
because you have not remembered the Most High in the days of your
prosperity: [you shall be removed, because you have not remembered the
Most High in the days of your prosperity.[256]]
8. You have committed blasphemy and iniquity; and are destined to the
day of the effusion of blood, to the day of darkness, and to the day of
the great judgment.
9. This I declare and point out to you, that he who created you will
destroy you.
10. When you fall, he will not show you mercy; but your Creator will
rejoice in your destruction.
11. Let those, then, who shall be righteous among you in those days,
detest sinners, and the ungodly.
Footnote 255:
_they._
Footnote 256:
These lines are evidently a repetition of the preceding, from an error
in the transcription. They do not occur in the Paris MS.