FIRST BOOK OF AḎAM AND ḤAWWAH 4

Aḏam laments the changed conditions. Aḏam and Ḥawwah enter the Cave of Treasures.

1 BUT Aḏam and Ḥawwah wept for having come out of the garden, their first abode.

2 And, indeed, when Aḏam looked at his flesh, that was altered, he wept bitterly, he and Ḥawwah, over what they had done. And they walked and went gently down into the Cave of Treasures.

3 And as they came to it Aḏam wept over himself and said to Ḥawwah, “Look at this cave that is to be our prison in this world, and a place of punishment!

4 “What is it compared with the garden? What is its narrowness compared with the space of the other?

5 “What is this rock, by the side of those groves? What is the gloom of this cavern, compared with the light of the garden?

6 “What is this overhanging ledge of rock to shelter us, compared with the mercy of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 that overshadowed us?

7 “What is the soil of this cave compared with the garden-land? This earth, strewed with stones; and that, planted with delicious fruit-trees?”

8 And Aḏam said to Ḥawwah, “Look at thine eyes, and at mine, which afore beheld messengers in shamayim, praising; and they, too, without ceasing.

9 “But now we do not see as we did: our eyes have become of flesh; they cannot see in like manner as they saw before.”

10 Aḏam said again to Ḥawwah, “What is our body to-day, compared to what it was in former days, when we dwelt in the garden?”

11 After this Aḏam did not like to enter the cave, under the overhanging rock; nor would he ever have entered it.

12 But he bowed to Elohim’s orders; and said to himself, “Unless I enter the cave, I shall again be a transgressor.”