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The Damascus Document — Column 12

The Qumran Community · a new plain-English translation from the original language

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it is holy [...] No man shall have sexual relations with a woman within the sanctuary city, so as to defile

the city of the sanctuary with their impurity [...] any man who is dominated by the spirits of Belial

and speaks apostasy shall be tried in accordance with the ruling given for mediums and necromancers [...] And whoever goes astray

to profane the Sabbath and the festivals shall not be put to death, for it is for the sons of man

to guard him [...] and if he recovers from it, they shall guard him for seven years, and afterward

he may come into the assembly [...] Let no one send his hand to shed the blood of a man from among the nations

for the sake of riches and profit [...] and also let him not take anything of their wealth at all, lest

they blaspheme, except by the counsel of the company of Israel [...] Let no man sell an animal

or clean fowl to the nations, lest they sacrifice them [...] and from his threshing floor

or his winepress he shall not sell to them at all [...] And his male slave and his female slave he shall not sell

to them, who joined him in entering the covenant made with Abraham [...] Let no man make his soul detestable

with any beast or creeping thing, eating of them, from the larvae of bees to every

living creature that creeps in the waters [...] And the fish they shall not eat unless they are split open

alive and their blood poured out [...] And all the locusts, according to their kinds, shall be brought into fire or into water

while they are still alive, for this is the law of their creation [...] And all the wood and the stones

and the dust which are defiled by the impurity of man, as oil-defilements are in them, according to

their impurity, [the one who touches] them shall be defiled [...] And every fastened vessel, a nail or a peg in a wall

which are with the dead in a house shall be defiled with the impurity of one who is a vessel of work [...]

The Rule of the session of the cities of Israel [...] in keeping with these regulations, to distinguish between

the unclean and the clean, and to make known the distinction separating the sacred from the common [...] And these are the statutes

for the Instructor, to walk by them with every living being, according to the law for every time [...] And according to the law

of this shall the seed of Israel walk, and they shall not be cursed [...] And this is the Rule of the session

of the [camps] who walk by these in the age of wickedness, until there arises the anointed one, the Messiah of Aaron

An original translation made in 2026 by Scriptorium Press, working directly from the original language text (never from another English translation), in one consistent modern voice. Free to read, download, and listen — no accounts, no ads, nothing for sale.

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