1And 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.
2To 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.
3Now, 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,
4And choose for yourselves righteousness, and a good life.
5Walk 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.
6Woe 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.
7Woe 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.]
8You 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.
9This I declare and point out to you, that he who created you will destroy you.
10When you fall, he will not show you mercy; but your Creator will rejoice in your destruction.
11Let those, then, who shall be righteous among you in those days, detest sinners, and the ungodly.