Damascus Document

Damascus Document, CD-A column 4, Schechter 1910 English

of Zadok that kept the charge of His sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray | from *them they shall bring near unto me fat and blood.” The priests are the captivity of Israel | who have gone forth out of the land of Judah and they who have joined them. And the sons of Zadok are the chosen | of Israel called by names that arose at the end of the days. Behold the explanation | of their names according to their generations, the end of their station and the number of their sufferings and the years | of their sojourns and the explanation of their deeds. The holy they alter which God made atonement | for them. And they justified the righteous and condemned the wicked. And all they who come after them | to do according to the interpretation of the Law in which the forefathers were *instructed until the *completing | of the end of these years. In accordance with the covenant which God has confirmed to the forefathers to make atonement | for their sins, so shall God make atonement for them. And after the completing of the end in accordance with the number of these years | *one shall not join the house of Judah, but every man shall stand up against his | net. The wall is built, the decree is far removed. And during all these years there will be | Belial let loose against Israel as God hath spoken through Isaiah, the prophet, the son | of Amoz, saying: Fear and the net and the snare are upon thee, O inhabitant of the land. Its explanation is |: three nets of Belial concerning which Levi the son of Jacob hath spoken | by* which he ensnared Israel and *directed their faces to the three kinds | of righteousness. The first is fornication, the second is *wealth, the third | is the *pollution of the sanctuary. He that fleeth from this will be ensnared by that, and he that escapeth the one will be ensnared | by the other. They that builded the *wall who walked after the *commanding one. The commanding one is he who prophesies* | concerning which he said, “For a surety they do drop words.” They are ensnared by two: by fornication, taking | two wives during their lifetimes, *but the foundation of the creation is, “Male and female created He them.”