Scriptural Savant

2 Baruch 39

Related ancient text — scholarly reference

Extra-canonical text — not LDS scripture and not in the KJV Apocrypha. Provided as scholarly reference for parallel literature of the Second Temple period and the early Christian era. Read with discernment; the Apostle Jude quotes 1 Enoch and Paul knew this material, but inclusion here is for study, not doctrine.

1And He answered and said unto me: "This is the interpretation of the vision which thou hast seen.

2As thou hast seen the great forest which lofty and precipitous mountains surrounded, this is the word.

3Behold! the days come, and this kingdom will be destroyed which once destroyed Zion, and it will be subjected to that which comes after it.

4Moreover, that also again after a time will be destroyed, and another, a third, will arise, and that also will have dominion for its time, and will be destroyed.

5And after these things a fourth kingdom will arise, whose power will be harsh and evil far beyond those which were before it, and it will rule many times as the forests on the plain, and it will hold fast the times, and will exalt itself more than the cedars of Lebanon.

6And by it the truth will be hidden, and all those who are polluted with iniquity will flee to it, as evil beasts flee and creep into the forest.

7And it will come to pass when the time of its consummation that he should fall has approached, then the principate of My Messiah will be revealed, which is like the fountain and the vine, and when it is revealed it will root out the multitude of its host.

8And that which thou hast seen, the lofty cedar, which was left of that forest, and with regard to this fact, that the vine spoke those words with it which thou didst hear, this is the word.

Public-domain text (R.H. Charles 1913 and equivalents). These works are not canonical, but several were widely read in antiquity and one (1 Enoch) is quoted by name in Jude 1:14–15. Useful for understanding the doctrinal landscape from which the apostles and earliest saints taught.