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A dying man asked his wife and son to walk to the edge of Paradise and beg for mercy. They came back with a prophecy -- and a death sentence. Adam lay groaning on his bed, the seve...
The serpent did not act alone. Behind the serpent stood a jealous angel -- and behind the angel stood a grudge older than humanity itself. Eve gathered all her children and grandch...
The serpent wept for her. That was the cruelest part. It pretended to grieve for her ignorance while plotting her destruction. "May God live!" the serpent said to Eve, its voice dr...
God pronounced three curses. One for the man. One for the woman. One for the serpent. And with those three curses, the world as it had been ended forever. To Adam, God said: "Since...
A dying man's last request was simple: pray for me. What happened next was something no human eye had ever seen. "Now you know how we were deceived," Eve told her children, finishi...
The seven heavens opened. The sun and moon went dark. And every angel in creation wept for the first man who ever died. Seth rose from his father's body and went to his mother. "Wh...
Six days. That was how long the archangel Michael had said it would take. And on the sixth day, exactly as foretold, Adam died. When Adam felt the hour of death closing in, he gath...
A demon was feeding on a child. Every evening, after the workers building the Temple in Jerusalem finished their labor, a spirit called Ornias descended upon the boy who served the...
The boy dragged the demon Ornias to the palace gates. The spirit stood there shuddering, trembling, crying out and offering silver and gold to anyone who would free him. But no one...
Solomon asked Onoskelis one final question: "Under what star do you pass?" "Under the full moon," she answered, "because the moon travels over most things." "And what angel defeats...
Solomon pressed Beelzeboul further. "If you want a respite from your labor, tell me about the things in heaven." The prince of demons leaned forward. "If you burn gum, incense, and...
A demon without a head was brought before Solomon. It had all the limbs of a man — arms, legs, torso — but where the head should have been, there was nothing. Just a stump above th...
A winged dragon with the face and hands of a man rolled into Solomon's court. Its body was scaled like a serpent, but its limbs were human, and great wings folded against its back....
The parade of demons continued. One by one the thirty-six spirits of the zodiac stepped forward before Solomon's throne, each confessing the disease it inflicts and the angel whose...
The thirty-sixth and final zodiac demon, Bianakith, confessed: "I lay waste houses and cause flesh to decay. But if a man writes certain holy names on the front door of his home, I...
The city was already dead. It just hadn't fallen yet. In the twenty-fifth year of King Jeconiah's reign over Judah, the word of God came to Baruch son of Neriah — the faithful scri...
The Chaldean army surrounded Jerusalem. But the real destruction — the kind that shatters heaven — had already begun inside the walls. On the evening before the siege tightened, Ba...
Two men stood in the ashes of the world. Baruch and Jeremiah — the scribe and the prophet — whose hearts had been found pure from sin, who had not been captured when the city fell....
Baruch stood on Mount Zion. The ruins smoked beneath him. And then a voice fell from the height of heaven like a stone. "Stand on your feet, Baruch, and hear the word of the mighty...
Seven days without bread. Seven days without water. Seven days without speaking a single word to another human being. Baruch sat in a cave in the Valley of Kidron, sanctifying his ...
Twelve catastrophes. Stacked on top of each other. Each one worse than the last. This is what God revealed to Baruch about the end of the world — and it reads like a countdown to a...
Baruch went to the holy place — the place where the Temple once stood — and sat down on the ruins. The ground where the high priest had once offered sacrifices and placed fragrant ...
What happens to the body after death? Not the soul — the body. Will the dead come back as they were? Will they be transformed into something else entirely? Baruch asked God the que...
A cloud rose from a vast sea. Baruch watched it ascend — enormous, churning, filled with waters both black and bright, shot through with colors, and crowned at its summit by a bolt...
This is the letter that Baruch son of Neriah sent across the river Euphrates to the nine and a half tribes in exile. It may be the most hopeful document ever written from the rubbl...
Thirty years after Babylon burned Jerusalem to the ground, a man named Ezra lay on his bed in the city of his captors and could not sleep. His thoughts boiled. His heart raged. Bec...
Uriel took Ezra back to the beginning. Before the portals of the world were in place. Before the winds blew or thunder sounded. Before the innumerable hosts of angels were gathered...
"Many have been created, but few shall be saved." With those words ringing in his ears, Ezra launched into the most daring prayer in all of Jewish apocalyptic literature — a prayer...
This is one of the most stunning visions in all of Jewish literature. A grieving woman becomes a city of light. And no one — not even Ezra — sees it coming. God had told Ezra to go...
On the second night, Ezra saw something rise from the sea. An eagle. Vast. Monstrous. It had twelve feathered wings and three heads, and when it spread those wings, they covered th...
Seven days of fasting. Then, in the dead of night, Ezra dreamed. A wind rose from the sea and churned all its waves. And from the heart of the sea — not its surface, not its shallo...
On the third day, Ezra sat under an oak tree. A voice came from a bush opposite him. "Ezra, Ezra." He rose to his feet. "Here I am, Lord." The voice from the bush was deliberate. U...
Reuben, firstborn son of Jacob and Leah, lay dying in the hundred and twenty-fifth year of his life. Two years had passed since Joseph fell asleep forever. Now Reuben's own sons ga...
Simeon, second son of Jacob and Leah, was dying in his hundred and twentieth year. Joseph his brother had already passed. When his sons came to visit, Simeon strengthened himself, ...
Levi, third son of Jacob and Leah, called his sons together when he knew his death was near. It had been revealed to him that he would die. When they gathered, he told them everyth...
Judah, fourth son of Jacob and Leah, gathered his sons and told them everything. His mother had named him Judah, saying, "I give thanks to the Lord, because He has given me a fourt...
Issachar, fifth son of Jacob and Leah, called his sons together and said: "Hearken, my children, to Issachar your father. Give ear to the words of him who is beloved of the Lord." ...
Zebulun, sixth son of Jacob and Leah, was dying in his hundred and fourteenth year, two years after Joseph. He gathered his sons and said: "I am not conscious that I have sinned al...
Dan, seventh son of Jacob, born of Bilhah, called his family together in the hundred and twenty-fifth year of his life. He had proved something in his heart through his entire exis...
Naphtali, eighth son of Jacob, born of Bilhah, was dying in his hundred and thirtieth year. His sons gathered on the first day of the seventh month. He was still in good health. He...
Gad, ninth son of Jacob, born of Zilpah, spoke to his sons in the hundred and twenty-fifth year of his life. He had been valiant in keeping the flocks, guarding them at night. When...
Asher, tenth son of Jacob, born of Zilpah, spoke to his sons in the hundred and twenty-fifth year of his life, while still in health. "Hearken, you children of Asher, to your fathe...
Joseph, eleventh son of Jacob, beloved of Rachel, was about to die. He called his sons and brethren together and spoke. "My brethren and my children, hearken to Joseph the beloved ...
Benjamin, twelfth and last son of Jacob, born of Rachel, had lived a hundred and twenty-five years. He kissed his sons and began to speak. "As Isaac was born to Abraham in his old ...
