SECOND BOOK OF AḎAM AND ḤAWWAH 21

1 After this, another group gathered together and went to look after their brothers but they perished with them as well. And so it was, company after company, until only a few of them remained.

2 Then Yereḏ was sickened with grief. And his sickness was such that the day of his death was near.

3 Then he called Ḥanoḵ his eldest son, and Methushelaḥ Ḥanoḵ’s son, and Lemeḵ the son of Methushelaḥ, and Noaḥ the son of Lemeḵ.

4 And when they came to him he prayed over them and baraḵ them, and said to them, “You are righteous, innocent sons. Do not go down from this qodesh mountain, because you have seen your children and your children’s children have gone down from this qodesh mountain, and have alienated themselves from this qodesh mountain through their reprehensible lust and transgression of Elohim’s Commandment.

5 But I know, through the power of Elohim, that He will not leave you on this qodesh mountain. Your children have transgressed His Commandment and that of our fathers, which we had received from them.

6 But, my sons, Elohim will take you to a strange land, and you never shall return to see this garden and this qodesh mountain with your own eyes once again.

7 Therefore, my sons, set your hearts on your own selves, and keep the Commandment of Elohim which is with you. And when you go from this qodesh mountain into a strange land which you do not know, take the body of our father Aḏam with you, and with it take these three precious gifts and offerings, namely, the gold, the incense, and the myrrh; and let them be in the place where the body of our father Aḏam shall lay.

8 And, my sons, of you who are left, the Word of Elohim will come, and when he goes out of this land he shall take with him the body of our father Aḏam, and shall lay it in the middle of the earth, the place in which deliverance shall be worked out.”

9 Then Noaḥ said to him, “Who is he of us that shall be left?”

10 And Yereḏ answered, “You are he that shall be left. And you shall take the body of our father Aḏam from the cave, and place it with you in the ark when the flood comes.

11 “And your son Shĕm, who shall come out of your loins, it is he who shall lay the body of our father Aḏam in the middle of the earth, in the place where salvation shall come.”

12 Then Yereḏ turned to his son Ḥanoḵ, and said to him “My son, abide in this cave, and minister diligently before the body of our father Aḏam all the days of your life, and feed your people in righteousness and innocence.”

13 And Yereḏ said no more. His hands went limp, his eyes closed, and he entered into rest like his fathers. His death took place in the three hundred and sixtieth year of Noaḥ, and in the nine hundred and eighty-ninth year of his own life; on the twelfth of ninth month on a sixth day.

14 But as Yereḏ died, tears streamed down his face by reason of his great sorrow, for the children of Shĕth, who had fallen in his days.

15 Then Ḥanoḵ, Methushelaḥ, Lemeḵ and Noaḥ, these four, wept over him; embalmed him carefully, and then laid him in the Cave of Treasures. Then they rose and mourned for him forty days.

16 And when these days of mourning were ended, Ḥanoḵ, Methushelaḥ, Lemeḵ and Noaḥ remained in sorrow of heart because their father had departed from them and could not see him again.