- 1Now, therefore, I swear to you, the righteous, by the glory of the Great and Honoured and Mighty One in dominion, and by His greatness I swear to you:
- 2I know a mystery And have read the heavenly tablets, And have seen the holy books, And have found written therein and inscribed regarding them:
- 3That all goodness and joy and glory are prepared for them, And written down for the spirits of those who have died in righteousness, And that manifold good shall be given to you in recompense for your labours, And that your lot is abundantly beyond the lot of the living.
- 4And the spirits of you who have died in righteousness shall live and rejoice, And their spirits shall not perish, nor their memorial from before the face of the Great One Unto all the generations of the world: wherefore no longer fear their contumely.
- 5Woe to you, ye sinners, when ye have died, If ye die in the wealth of your sins; And those who are like you say regarding you: “Blessed are the sinners: they have seen all their days.
- 6And now they have died in prosperity and in wealth, And have not seen tribulation or murder in their life; And they have died in honour, And judgement has not been executed on them during their life.”
- 7Know ye, that their souls will be made to descend into Sheol, And they shall be wretched in their great tribulation.
- 8And into darkness and chains and a burning flame where there is grievous judgement shall your spirits enter; And the great judgement shall be for all the generations of the world. Woe to you, for ye shall have no peace.
- 9Say not in regard to the righteous and good who are in life: “In our troubled days we have toiled laboriously and experienced every trouble, And met with much evil and been consumed, And have become few and our spirit small.
- 10And we have been destroyed and have not found any to help us even with a word: We have been tortured [and destroyed], and hoped not to see life from day to day.
- 11We hoped to be the head and have become the tail: We have toiled laboriously and had no satisfaction in our toil; And we have become the food of the sinners and the unrighteous, And they have laid their yoke heavily upon us.
- 12They have had dominion over us that hated us †and smote us; And to those that hated us† we have bowed our necks, But they pitied us not.
- 13We desired to get away from them that we might escape and be at rest, But found no place whereunto we should flee and be safe from them.
- 14And we complained to the rulers in our tribulation, And cried out against those who devoured us; But they did not attend to our cries, And would not hearken to our voice.
- 15And they helped those who robbed us and devoured us and those who made us few; and they concealed their oppression, and they did not remove from us the yoke of those that devoured us and dispersed us and murdered us, and they concealed their murder, and remembered not that they had lifted up their hands against us.”
ANCIENT JEWISH LITERATURE · R. H. CHARLES
1 ENOCH 103
Read the chapter and trace carefully labeled connections throughout the Bible.
CHAPTER VISUAL
Enoch 103 — The heavenly record promises joy to the righteous dead and tribulation to sinners who prospered through oppression.
About this illustration
The contrasting destinies are presented as visionary light, distance, and posture rather than anatomical claims about spirits; chains and flame remain non-graphic.
Passage basis: 1 Enoch 103:1–15Ancient Jewish literatureIncluded for historical and biblical study; not part of the Protestant biblical canon.
R. H. Charles translation (1912) · Reprinted 1917 · Public domain in the United States · Editorial brackets and uncertainty markers preserved · Source edition
Bible Connections
These links distinguish direct quotation, explicit retelling, strong literary parallel, and broader shared tradition. A parallel does not by itself prove direct dependence.
The dead await judgment in separated conditions, and the earthly prosperity of the rich is reversed after death.