Second Baruch

And he answered

and said

to me:

Because of this, at that time he established a covenant with them and said,

‘Behold, I have set before you life and death,’

and he called heaven and earth to witness against them.

For he knew that his time was short,

but heaven and earth endure for all time.

Yet after his death they sinned

and transgressed,

knowing that they had the law to reprove them,

and that light in which nothing could

ever

go astray,

as well as the heavenly spheres which bear witness,

and me, and I judge concerning all that exists.

Do not, therefore, ponder these things in your soul,

nor be grieved over those things that have happened.

For now it is the end of time,

or

of matters, or

of prosperity,

or of disgrace that is sought, and not its beginning.

For if a person prospers

at the beginning and is disgraced in his old age,

he forgets all the prosperity that he had.

And again, if a person is disgraced

at the beginning and prospers at his end,

he no longer remembers his disgrace.

And hear again:

for all this time, from the day death was decreed

concerning those who pass through it in this

time.

For if everyone

had prospered ... and at his end was destroyed,

into vanity

everything would become.