1. And now let me exhort you, my children, to love righteousness, and to walk in it; for the paths of righteousness are worthy of acceptation; but the paths of iniquity shall suddenly fail, and be diminished.
2. To men of note in their generation the paths of oppression and death are revealed; but they keep far from them, and do not follow them.
3. Now, too, let me exhort you who are righteous, not to walk in the paths of evil and oppression, nor in the paths of death. Approach them not, that you may not perish; but covet,
4. And choose for yourselves righteousness, and a good life.
5. Walk in the paths of peace, that you may live, and be found worthy. Retain my words in your inmost thoughts, and obliterate them not from your hearts; for I know that sinners counsel men to commit crime craftily. They are not found in every place, nor does every counsel possess a little of them.
6. Woe to those who build up iniquity and oppression, and who lay the foundation of fraud; for suddenly shall they be subverted, and never obtain peace.
7. Woe to those who build up their houses with crime; for from their very foundations shall their houses be demolished, and by the sword shall they themselves fall. Those, too, who acquire gold and silver, shall justly and suddenly perish. Woe to you who are rich, for in your riches have you trusted; but from your riches you shall be removed; because you have not remembered the Most High in the days of your prosperity: [you shall be removed, because you have not remembered the Most High in the days of your prosperity.
8. You have committed blasphemy and iniquity; and. are destined to the day of the effusion of blood, to the day of darkness, and to the day of the great judgment.
9. This I declare and point out to you, that he who created you will destroy you.
10. When you fall, he will not show you mercy; but your Creator will rejoice in your destruction.
11. Let those, then, who shall be righteous among you in those days, detest sinners, and the ungodly.