1   The angel who was sent to me, whose name was Uriel, replied: ‘You are at a loss to explain this world; 2   do you then expect to understand the ways of the Most High?’ 3   ‘Yes, my lord’, I replied.

‘I have been sent to propound to you three of the ways of this world,’ he continued, ‘to give you three illustrations. 4   If you can explain to me any one of them, then I will answer your question about the way of the Most High, and teach you why the heart is wicked.’

5   I said, ‘Speak, my lord.’ ‘Come then,’ he said, ‘weigh me a pound of fire, measure me a bushel ^note of wind, or call back a day that has passed.’

6   ‘How can you ask me to do that?’ I replied; ‘no man on earth can do it.’ 7   He said: ‘Suppose I had asked you, “How many dwellings are there in the heart of the sea? or how many streams to feed the deep?

The mystery of human destiny or how many watercourses above the vault of heaven? Where are the paths out of the grave, and the roads into ^note paradise? 8   ”, you might then have replied, “I have never been down into the deep, I have not yet gone down into the grave, I have never gone up into heaven.” 9   But, as it is, I have only asked you about fire, about wind, and about yesterday, things you are bound to have met; and yet you have failed to tell me the answers.

10   ‘If then’, he went on, ‘you cannot understand things you have grown up with, 11   how can your small capacity comprehend the ways of the Most High? A man corrupted by the corrupt world can never know the way of the incorruptible.’ ^note

12   When I heard that, I fell ^note prostrate and exclaimed: ‘Better never to have come into existence than be born into a world of wickedness and suffering which we cannot explain!’ 13   He replied, ‘I went out into a wood, and the trees of the forest were making a plan. 14   They said, “Come, let us make war on the sea, force it to retreat, and win ground for more woods.” 15   The waves of the sea made a similar plan: they said, “Come, let us attack the trees of the forest, conquer them, and annex their territory.” 16   The plan made by the trees came to nothing, for fire came and burnt them down. 17   The plan made by the waves failed just as badly, for the sand stood its ground and blocked their way. 18   If you had to judge between the two, which would you pronounce right, and which wrong?’

19   I answered, ‘Both were wrong; their plans were impossible, for the land is assigned to the trees, and to the sea is allotted a place for its waves.’

20   ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘you have judged rightly. Why then have you failed to do so with your own question? 21   Just as the land belongs to the trees and the sea to the waves, so men on earth can understand earthly things and nothing else; only those who live ^note above the skies can understand the things above the skies.’

22   ‘But tell me, my lord,’ I said, ‘why then have I been given the faculty of understanding? 23   My question is not about the distant heavens, but about the things which happen every day before our eyes. Why has Israel been made a byword among the Gentiles; why has the people you loved been put at the mercy of godless nations? Why has the law of our fathers been brought to nothing, and the

The mystery of human destiny written covenants made a dead letter? 24   We pass like a flight of locusts, our life is but a vapour, and we are not worth the Lord's pity, though we bear his name; what then will he do for us? 25   These are my questions.’

26   He answered: ‘If you survive, you will see; if you live long enough, you will marvel. ^noteFor this present age is quickly passing away; 27   it is full of sorrow and frailties, too full to enjoy what is promised in due time for the godly. 28   The evil about which you ask me has been sown, but its reaping has not yet come. 29   Until the crop of evil has been reaped as well as sown, until the ground where it was sown has vanished, there will be no room for the field which has been sown with the good. 30   A grain of the evil seed was sown in the heart of Adam from the first; how much godlessness has it produced already! How much more will it produce before the harvest! 31   Reckon this up: if one grain of evil seed has produced so great a crop of godlessness, 32   how vast a harvest will there be when good seeds beyond number have been sown!’

33   I asked, ‘But when? How long have we to wait? Why are our lives so short and so miserable?’ 34   He replied, ‘Do not be in a greater hurry than the Most High himself. You are in a hurry for yourself alone; the Most High for many. 35   Are not these the very questions which were asked by the righteous in the storehouse of souls: “How long must we stay here? When will the harvest begin, the time when we get our reward?” 36   And the archangel Jeremiel gave them this answer: “As soon as the number of those like yourselves is complete. 37   For the Lord has weighed the world in a balance, he has measured and numbered the ages; he will move nothing, alter nothing, until the appointed number is achieved.”’

38   ‘But, my lord, my master,’ I replied, ‘we are all of us sinners through and through. 39   Can it be that because of us, because of the sins of mankind, the harvest and the reward of the just are delayed?’ 40   ‘Go,’ he said, ‘ask a pregnant woman whether she can keep the child in her womb any longer after the nine months are complete.’ 41   ‘No, my lord,’ I said, ‘she cannot.’ He went on: ‘The storehouses of souls in the world below are like the womb. 42   As a woman in travail is impatient to see the end of her labour, so they are impatient to give back all the souls committed to them since time began. 43   Then all your questions will be answered.’

The mystery of human destiny

44   I said, ‘If it is possible for you to tell and for me to understand, will you be gracious enough to disclose one thing more: 45   which is the longer—the future still to come, or the past that has gone by? 46    47   What is past I know, but not what is still to be.’ ‘Come and stand on my right,’ he said; ‘you shall see a vision, and I will explain what it means.’

48   So I stood and watched, and there passed before my eyes a blazing fire; when the flames had disappeared from sight, there was still some smoke left. 49   After that a dark rain-cloud passed before me; there was a heavy storm, and when it had gone over, there were still some raindrops left. 50   ‘Reflect on this’, said the angel. ‘The shower of rain filled a far greater space than the drops of water, and the fire more than the smoke. In the same way, the past far exceeds the future in length; what remains is but raindrops and smoke.’

51   ‘Pray tell me,’ I said, ‘do you think that I shall live to see those days? 52   Or in whose lifetime will they come?’ ‘If you ask me what signs will herald them,’ he said, ‘I can tell you in part. But the length of your own life I am not commissioned to tell you; of that I know nothing.

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