103. whether fathers for children, or children for parents, or brethren for brethren, or kinsfolk for their next of kin, or friends for them that are most dear.
104. And he answered me, and said, Since you have found favor in my sight, I will show you this also: The day of judgement is a day of decision, and displays to all the seal of truth; even as now a father sends not his son, or a son his father, or a master his slave, or a friend him that is most dear, that in his stead he may be sick, or sleep, or eat, or be healed:
105. so never shall anyone pray for another in that day, neither shall one lay a burden on another, for then shall all bear every one his own righteousness or unrighteousness.
106. And I answered and said, How do we now find that first Abraham prayed for the people of Sodom, and Moses for the fathers that sinned in the wilderness:
107. and Joshua after him for Israel in the days of Achar:
108. and Samuel in the days of Saul; and David for the plague: and Solomon for them that should worship in the sanctuary:
109. and Elijah for those that received rain; and for the dead, that he might live:
110. and Hezekiah for the people in the days of Sennacherib: and many for many?
111. If therefore now, when corruption is grown up, and unrighteousness increased, the righteous have prayed for the ungodly, wherefore shall it not be so then also?
112. 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.
113. But the day of judgement shall be the end of this time, and the beginning of the immortality for to come, wherein corruption is passed away,
114. intemperance is at an end, infidelity is cut off, but righteousness is grown, and truth is sprung up.
115. Then shall no man be able to have mercy on him that is cast in judgement, nor to thrust down him that has gotten the victory.
116. I answered then and said, this is my first and last saying, that it had been better that the earth had not given you Adam: or else, when it had given him, to have restrained him from sinning.
117. For what profit is it for all that are in this present time to live in heaviness, and after death to look for punishment?
118. O you Adam, what have you done? For though it was you that sinned, the evil is not fallen on you alone, but upon all of us that come of you.
119. For what profit is it to us, if there be promised us an immortal time, whereas we have done the works that bring death?
120. And that there is promised us an everlasting hope, whereas ourselves most miserably are become vain?