Moses went further and saw two sinners hanged by their feet with their heads downwards, and they cried by reason of the torture of Hell, and their bodies were covered with black worms, each worm 500 parasangs long. And these sinners cry and lament, saying: "Woe unto us, for the terrible punishment of Hell; would we could die." But they cannot die. Moses went then to another place. There the sinners were lying on their faces; and he saw two thousand scorpions swarming over them and stinging them and torturing them, and the sinners cried bitterly. Each scorpion has 70,000 mouths, and each mouth 70,000 stings, and each sting has 70,000 vesicles filled with poison and venom. He saw there another place where the sinners stood up to their knees; the name of that place is Tit hayaven ("miry clay"). Angels of destruction tie them up with chains of iron and lash them with fiery whips, and they take fiery stones and break with them the teeth of the sinners, from morning until evening.
The Worms and Scorpions That Punish the Guilty in Gehinnom
Gaster, Hebrew Visions of Hell and Paradise, Revelation of Moses (A), sec. 40-44
Themes
Original Sources
- Hebrew Visions of Hell and Paradise, Revelation of Moses A, sec. 40-44