The Qumran Community · a new plain-English translation from the original language
faithful to them, granting them life across a thousand generations, just as scripture states: he maintains the covenant and steadfast love
for those who love me and keep my commandments, for a thousand generations. [...] and if they dwell in camps according to the Rule of
the land that existed from ancient times, and they take wives according to the custom of the law, and [beget] sons
and conduct themselves by the law [...] and by the ruling of the foundational statutes, in keeping with the Rule of the law,
as he said, between a man and his wife, and between a father and his son [...] and all who reject the commandments
and the statutes, to repay the wicked their due, when God visits the land [...]
when the word arrives, set down through the prophet Zechariah: sword, awake against
my shepherd and against the man who is my companion, declares God [...] strike the shepherd, so the flock will scatter,
and I will turn my hand against the little ones [...] and those who watch over him, they are the poor of the flock [...]
these shall escape in the time of the visitation, but the rest shall be delivered to the sword when the Messiah comes,
of Aaron and of Israel [...] as it was in the time of the first visitation, of which Ezekiel spoke,
by the hand of Ezekiel, to mark with a mark the marks upon the foreheads of those who sigh and groan [...]
but the rest were delivered up to the avenging sword, vengeance of the covenant [...] and so is the judgment for all who enter
his covenant, refusing to cling firmly to these statutes, so that they be visited for destruction by the hand of Belial [...]
that is the day when God will make visitation, as he spoke: the princes of Judah shall be like those who removed
the boundary against them; I will pour out wrath like water [...] for they came, they entered into the covenant of repentance,
yet they did not turn away from the path of traitors, but wallowed in the ways of harlotry and in wicked wealth,
and took vengeance and bore grudges each against his brother, and hated each his neighbor [...] and they hid themselves, each
against his own flesh, and drew near to lewdness, and grew powerful for wealth and for gain, and each man did
what was right in his own eyes [...] and each chose the stubbornness of his own heart, and did not separate from the people
and from their sin [...] but they acted with a high hand, walking in the ways of the wicked, of whom
God said concerning them: their wine is the venom of serpents and the cruel poison of asps [...] the serpents
are the kings of the peoples, their wine represents their conduct, and the venom of asps is the chief
of the kings of Greece, who comes against them to take vengeance [...] and in all this the builders of
the wall did not understand, nor those who daub it with plaster [...] for one who walks in wind and raises storms, and one who preaches to men
falsehood, against whom God's anger burned against all his congregation [...] and as Moses said
to Israel: not for your righteousness nor for the uprightness of your heart do you come to possess these nations,
but because he loved your fathers and kept the oath [...] so
is the judgment for those of Israel who returned, who turned away from the path of the people [...] through God's love for the forefathers
who testified concerning the people after God, and he loved those who came after them, for to them belongs
the covenant of the fathers [...] yet God despises and detests the builders of the wall; his wrath flared against them and against all
who walk after them [...] and according to this same judgment for all who reject the commandments of God [...]
and he abandoned them, and they turned to the stubbornness of their heart [...] so it is for all the men who entered into the covenant
the new, in the land of Damascus, but turned back and dealt treacherously and turned aside from the well of living water [...]
they shall not be reckoned in the council of the people, and in their register they shall not be enrolled, from the day of the gathering in of the unique teacher