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 annihilation.
"Into twelve parts is that time divided," God declared, "and each one is reserved for what is appointed to it."
In the first part — commotions. The stirring of unrest across the earth. In the second — the slaying of the great ones. Kings and rulers cut down. In the third — death on a massive scale. In the fourth — the sending of the sword. War unleashed without restraint. In the fifth — famine and drought, the withholding of rain. In the sixth — earthquakes and terrors that shake the foundations of the world.
The seventh part is lost — the ancient text simply says "wanting," a gap in the manuscript where some horror once stood, now erased by time itself.
In the eighth — a multitude of specters and attacks of the Shedim, the demons of Jewish tradition, swarming out of the darkness. In the ninth — the fall of fire from the sky. In the tenth — robbery and oppression on a scale beyond reckoning. In the eleventh — wickedness and depravity. And in the twelfth — the confusion born from all eleven woes mingling together, each feeding the others, compounding into total chaos.
The woes would not come in neat succession. They would overlap. Bleed into each other. "Some shall leave out some of their own and receive from others," God explained. The result would be so disorienting that the people living through it would not even recognize they were witnessing the consummation of the ages.
"Nevertheless," God added, "whoever understands shall then be wise."
Baruch asked whether these calamities would strike one place or the whole earth. God's answer was absolute: "Whatever will befall will befall the whole earth. All who live will experience it." But there was a caveat — God would protect those found in the land of Israel during those days.
And then, after all twelve woes had spent themselves, the promise that made every catastrophe bearable: "The Messiah shall then begin to be revealed."
With the Messiah's arrival would come wonders beyond imagination. Behemoth would emerge from the land and Leviathan would rise from the sea — those two primordial monsters that God had created on the fifth day of creation and hidden away for this very moment. They would become food for all who survived. The earth would yield its fruit ten-thousandfold. Every vine would grow a thousand branches. Every branch a thousand clusters. Every cluster a thousand grapes. Every single grape would produce an entire barrel of wine.
Winds would carry the fragrance of aromatic fruits every morning. Clouds would distill the dew of healing every evening. And the treasury of manna — the same heavenly bread that fed Israel in the desert — would descend from on high once more.
Then came the resurrection. When the time of the Messiah was fulfilled, the treasuries of souls would be opened. The righteous who had fallen asleep in hope would rise. They would come forth together in one great assemblage — the first rejoicing and the last not grieved, for all would know that the consummation of the times had arrived.
But the souls of the wicked, witnessing all this, would waste away. For they would know that their torment had come, and their perdition had arrived.