Abraham asked again: "How long a time is an hour of the Age?"
God answered: "Twelve years have I ordained of this ungodly age to rule among the heathen and in your seed. Until the end of the times it shall be as you have seen. Reckon and understand and look into the picture."
The present age was the age of ungodliness, where the organized forces of evil were dominant, a world where Azazel held a share of God's heritage. But it had a fixed duration, measured in divine hours, and each hour was ticking toward a conclusion.
Before the age of the righteous could begin to grow, God declared, His judgment would come upon the lawless heathen through the agency of Abraham's own descendants.
"In those days I will bring upon all creatures of the earth ten plagues, through misfortune and disease and the sighing grief of their souls. This much will I bring upon the generations of men on account of the provocation and corruption of creation, whereby they provoke me."
Ten plagues mirroring Egypt but cast on a cosmic scale. Not liberation of one people from one empire, but the final reckoning of all creation before the dawn of the new age.
"And then shall righteous men of your seed be left, in the number which is kept secret by me, hastening in the glory of my Name to the place prepared beforehand for them, which you saw devastated in the picture."
The place was Jerusalem. Devastated in the vision of the Temple's destruction, but prepared for restoration. A remnant of the righteous would survive the plagues and gather there. Their number was fixed in advance, known only to God.
"They shall live and be established through sacrifices and gifts of righteousness and truth in the age of the righteous, and shall rejoice in me continually. They shall destroy those who destroyed them, and shall insult those who insulted them, and shall spit in the face of those who scorned them."
Then God spoke the final words of the cosmic vision directly to Abraham:
See, Abraham, what you have seen,<br/> And hear what you have heard,<br/> And take full knowledge of what you have come to know.<br/> Go to your heritage.<br/> And I am with you forever.