Damascus Document

Damascus Document, CD-A column 7, Schechter 1910 English

of his neighbour. And no man shall commit treason against his nearest of kin, separating himself from *fornication | according to the Law. To admonish every one his neighbour according to the Law, and not to bear a grudge | from day to day, and to separate from all the contaminations according to their laws. And no man shall defile | his holy spirit, *(even) as God did separate them. All they who walk | in these things in the perfection of holiness according to all the *instructions, the covenant of God *stands fast to them | to preserve them for a thousand generations. And if they settle in camps in accordance with the *usage of the land and take | wives and beget children they shall walk according to the Law, and according to | the *foundations according to the usage of the Law as He had spoken, “between man and his wife and between father | and his son.” But upon all them that despise...when God will bring a visitation upon the land will be returned the desert of the wicked; | when there will come to pass the word which is written in the words of Isaiah the son of Amoz the prophet | who said, *“He will bring upon thee and upon thy people and upon thy father’s house days that | have* not come from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah.” When the two houses of Israel separated | Ephraim* turned away from Judah, and those who turned back were delivered to the sword and those who held fast | escaped into the land of the North. As He said, “And I will cause to go into captivity Siccuth your King | and Chiyun your images, from the tents of Damascus.” The books of the Law are the Tent | of the King, as He said, “And I will raise up the tent of David that is fallen.” The King | is the congregation and Chiyun the images are the books of the Prophets | whose words Israel has despised, and the Star is he who explained the Law | who came to Damascus, as it is written, “There came forth a Star out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise | out of Israel.” The Sceptre is the prince of all the congregation, and when he will rise “he will destroy | all the children of Seth.” These escaped at the end of the first visitation,