2 Enoch 58

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.

1Listen to me, my children, to-day.

2In those days when the Lord came down on to earth for Adam's sake, and visited all his creatures, which he created himself, after all these he created Adam, and the Lord called all the beasts of the earth, all the reptiles, and all the birds that soar in the air, and brought them all before the face of our father Adam.

3And Adam gave the names to all things living on earth.

4And the Lord appointed him ruler over all, and subjected to him all things under his hands, and made them dumb and made them dull that they be commanded of man, and be in subjection and obedience to him.

5Thus also the Lord created every man lord over all his possessions.

6The Lord will not judge a single soul of beast for man's sake, but adjudges the souls of men to their beasts in this world; for men have a special place.

7And as every soul of man is according to number, similarly beasts will not perish, nor all souls of beasts which the Lord created, till the great judgment, and they will accuse man, if he feed them ill.

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.