Column 3

1 his soul has loathed the disciplines of knowledge, the judgments of righteousness. He has not held firm in turning his life around, and he shall not be counted with the upright. 2 His knowledge and his strength and his wealth shall not come into the council of the community, for he plows in the mud of wickedness, and there are stains 3 on his repentance. He will not be made righteous while he follows the stubbornness of his heart, and he looks on darkness as the ways of light. In the spring of the perfect 4 he shall not be counted. He will not be made innocent by atonements, or purified by waters of cleansing, or sanctified by seas 5 and rivers, or purified by any water of washing. Impure, impure he will be, all the days that he rejects the judgments of 6 God, so as not to be disciplined in the community of his counsel. For it is by the spirit of the true counsel of God that the ways of a man are atoned for, all⁠a 7 his iniquities, so that he may look on the light of life. And by the spirit of holiness, which joins him to his truth, he is purified from all⁠b 8 his iniquities, and by the spirit of uprightness and humility his sin is atoned for. And by the humbling of his soul to all the statutes of God his flesh is purified,⁠c 9 to be sprinkled with waters of cleansing and sanctified with waters of purification. Let him then set his steps to walk perfectly 10 in all the ways of God, as he commanded for the appointed times of his testimonies, and not turn aside to the right or to the left, and not 11 step over any one of all his words. Then he will be accepted through pleasing atonements before God, and it will be for him a covenant of 12 the eternal community. 13 For the instructor, to give insight and to teach all the sons of light about the generations of all the sons of man,⁠d 14 as to all the kinds of their spirits, with their signs, as to their works in their generations, and as to the visitation of their afflictions together with 15 their ages of peace. From the God of knowledge comes all that is and all that will be. Before they existed he set in place their whole design, 16 and when they come to exist at their appointed times, they fulfill their task according to his glorious design, and nothing can be changed. In his hand 17 are the judgments of all things, and he sustains them in all their needs. He created humankind to rule 18 the world, and he set for it two spirits in which to walk until the appointed time of his visitation. They are the spirits of 19 truth and of iniquity. In a spring of light are the generations of truth, and from a fountain of darkness are the generations of iniquity. 20 In the hand of the Prince of Lights is the rule over all the sons of righteousness; they walk in the ways of light.⁠e And in the hand of the Angel of 21 Darkness is all the rule over the sons of iniquity, and they walk in the ways of darkness. And by the Angel of Darkness comes the straying of 22 all the sons of righteousness, and all their sins and their iniquities and their guilt and the transgressions of their works are under his dominion, 23 according to the mysteries of God, until his end. And all their afflictions and their times of distress are under the dominion of his hostility, 24 and all the spirits of his lot try to make the sons of light stumble. But the God of Israel and his angel of truth help all 25 the sons of light. He created the spirits of light and of darkness, and on them he founded every work, 26 [and on their counsels] every service, and on their ways [every] visitation. The one God loves for all