Enoch Teaches His Children What He Saw in Heaven

"My beloved children," Enoch said, "hear the admonition of your father — not from my lips, but from the lips of the Lord. Everything that is, was, and will be until the day of judgment — all of it has been revealed to me."

He stood before his family — a man who had looked directly into the face of God — and tried to make them understand the scale of what he had witnessed.

"You see my eyes," he told them. "The eyes of a man. But I have seen the Lord's eyes, shining like the sun's rays, filling mortal sight with terror. You see my right hand — a hand that helps you. But I have seen the Lord's right hand, filling all of heaven. You hear my words. But I heard the Lord's words, like great thunder that never stops, hurling through clouds."

"If it is fearful to come before an earthly ruler," Enoch asked, "how much more terrible is it to come before the ruler of heaven — the judge of the living and the dead, the commander of all the heavenly hosts? Who can endure that endless awe?"

Then he told them what he knew. Everything. He had written it all in books — the heavens and their boundaries, the armies and their formations. He had measured and named the stars, a multitude so vast that not even the angels could count them. He had calculated the sun's circle and tracked its rays. He had recorded every plant, every flower, every grass, and their fragrances. He had mapped the dwelling-places of clouds and traced the roads of thunder and lightning.

He had catalogued the treasure-houses of snow and the storehouses of frost. He had observed how the keepers of the winds weighed them on scales, releasing them in careful measure so the earth would not shake. He had measured the entire earth — its mountains, hills, fields, trees, stones, and rivers — from the ground to the seventh heaven, and from the surface downward to the deepest pit of judgment.

And there, in the abyss, he had seen the condemned. Prisoners in agony, awaiting a judgment without limit.

He had seen all the forefathers — from the beginning of time, including Adam and Eve themselves — and he broke into tears at the sight of their dishonor. "Blessed is the man who has not been born," he cried, "or who, having been born, has not sinned before the Lord's face."

And at the gates of the lowest places, he had seen the guards — standing like great serpents, their faces like dimming lamps, their eyes like fire, their teeth sharp and gleaming. The key-holders of the abyss.

This was what Enoch carried back to earth: a complete map of heaven and hell, written in three hundred and sixty-six books, delivered by a man who had thirty days to live.