1 [ … the Ru]le of the Community, and from [ … ]
1 For [the Instructor … ] for his life. [The book of the Ru]le of the Community: to seek
2 God with [all the heart and with all the soul,] to do what is good and right before Him, as
3 He commanded by the hand of Moses and by the hand of all His servants the prophets; and to love all
4 that He has chosen, and to hate all that He has rejected; to keep far from all evil
5 and to cleave to all works of good; and to do truth and righteousness and justice
6 in the land; and to walk no longer in the stubbornness of a guilty heart and eyes of fornication,
7 doing all evil; and to bring in all who freely offer themselves to do the statutes of God
8 into a covenant of kindness, to be joined ⟨united⟩ in the counsel of God, and to walk before Him perfect in all
9 things revealed at the appointed times of their testimonies; and to love all the sons of light, each
10 according to his lot in the counsel of God, and to hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt
11 in the vengeance of God. And all who freely offer themselves for His truth shall bring all their knowledge and their strength
12 and their wealth into the Community of God, to refine their knowledge in the truth of the statutes of God, and to order their strength
13 according to the perfection of His ways, and all their wealth according to His righteous counsel; and not to step aside from any one
14 of all the words of God in their appointed seasons; and not to advance their times, nor to hold back
15 from any of their appointed feasts; and not to turn aside from the statutes of His truth, going to the right or the left.
16 And all who enter the Rule of the Community shall pass into the covenant before God, to do
17 according to all that He has commanded, and not to turn back from following Him because of any dread or terror or trial
18 ⟨corrected by the scribe⟩ endured under the dominion of Belial. And when they pass into the covenant, the priests
19 and the Levites shall bless the God of deliverance and all the works of His truth, and all
20 who pass into the covenant shall say after them, Amen, Amen. [blank]
21 [blank] And the priests shall recount the righteous acts of God in His works of might,
22 and shall proclaim all His acts of mercy and kindness toward Israel; and the Levites shall recount
23 the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their guilty transgressions and their sins under the dominion of
24 Belial. [And al]l who pass into the covenant shall confess after them, saying: We have done wrong,
25 [we have tra]nsgressed, [we have si]nned, we have acted wickedly, we [and our] fathers before us, in our walking
26 [ … ] truth; and righteous is [the Go]d [of Israel, and] His judgement upon us and upon [our] fathers
1 and the mercies of His kindness He has dealt out to us from everlasting to everlasting. And the priests shall bless all
2 the men of the lot of God, who walk perfect in all His ways, and shall say: May He bless you with every
3 good, and keep you from every evil; and may He enlighten your heart with the insight of life, and be gracious to you with everlasting knowledge;
4 and may He lift up the face of His mercies toward you, for everlasting peace. And the Levites shall curse all the men
5 of the lot of Belial, and shall answer and say: Cursed are you in all the works of your guilty wickedness. May He give you
6 over to terror at the hand of all who take vengeance; and may He visit destruction upon you at the hand of all who render
7 recompense. Cursed are you, without mercy, according to the darkness of your deeds; and damned are you
8 in the gloom of everlasting fire. May God not be gracious to you when you call, nor pardon you by covering your iniquities.
9 May He lift up the face of His anger for vengeance upon you, and may there be no peace for you in the mouth of any who hold fast to the fathers.
10 And all who pass into the covenant shall say, after those who bless and those who curse: Amen, Amen.
11 [blank] And the priests and the Levites shall continue and say: Cursed for passing over with the idols of his heart
12 is he who enters this covenant, and who sets the stumbling-block of his iniquity before him, to fall back by it. And it shall be
13 that when he hears the words of this covenant, he blesses himself in his heart, saying, Peace be to me,
14 for I walk in the stubbornness of my heart — then his spirit shall be swept away, the thirsty together with the sated ⟨watered⟩, without
15 pardon. The anger of God and the zeal of His judgements shall burn against him to everlasting destruction, and all
16 the curses of this covenant shall cling to him; and God shall set him apart for evil, and he shall be cut off from among all the sons of light, because he has fallen back
17 from following God with his idols and the stumbling-block of his iniquity. He shall set his lot among those cursed for ever.
18 And all who enter the covenant shall answer and say after them: Amen, Amen. [blank]
19 [blank] Thus shall they do year by year, all the days of the dominion of Belial. The priests shall pass over
20 first, in order, according to their spirits, one after another; and the Levites shall pass over after them;
21 and all the people shall pass over third, in order, one after another, by thousands and hundreds
22 and fifties and tens, so that every man of Israel may know the house of his standing in the Community of God,
23 for an everlasting counsel. No man shall be lowered from the house of his standing, nor raised from the place of his lot.
24 For all of them shall be in a Community of truth, and of virtuous humility, and of loving-kindness, and of righteous intent,
25 each toward his fellow, in a holy counsel, and members of an everlasting fellowship. And everyone who refuses to enter
26 [the covenant of Go]d, so as to walk in the stubbornness of his heart, shall not [ … the Commun]ity of His truth, for his soul has abhorred