2 Enoch 59

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.

1Whoever defiles the soul of beasts, defiles his own soul.

2For man brings clean animals to make sacrifice for sin, that he may have cure of his soul.

3And if they bring for sacrifice clean animals, and birds, man has cure, he cures his soul.

4All is given you for food, bind it by the four feet, that is to make good the cure, he cures his soul.

5But whoever kills beast without wounds, kills his own souls and defiles his own flesh.

6And he who does any beast any injury whatsoever, in secret, it is evil practice, and he defiles his own soul.

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.