2 Baruch 75

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 I answered and said: "Who can understand, O Lord, Thy goodness? For it is incomprehensible.

2Or who can search into thy compassions, which are infinite?

3Or who can comprehend Thy intelligence?

4Or who is able to recount the thoughts of Thy mind?

5Or who of those who are born can hope to come to those things, unless he is one to whom Thou art merciful and gracious?

6Because, if assuredly Thou didst not have compassion on man, those who are under Thy right hand, they could not come to those things, but those who are in the numbers named can be called.

7But if, indeed, we who exist know wherefore we have come, and submit ourselves to Him who brought us out of Egypt, we shall come again and remember those things which have passed, and shall rejoice regarding that which has been.

8But if now we know not wherefore we have come, and recognise not the principate of Him who brought us up out of Egypt, we shall come again and seek after those things which were now, and be grieved with pain because of those things which have befallen."

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.