2 Baruch 52

1For the earth will then certainly give back the dead whom it now receives in order to preserve them, changing nothing in their form; but as it received them, so it will restore them, and as I delivered them to it, so it will raise them.

2For this is required: that it may be shown to the living that the dead have come to life, and that those who had departed have returned.

3And it shall be, when they recognize one another—those who now know one another—that then the appearance of those who are now condemned will become more dreadful.

4And it shall be that, after that appointed day has passed, afterward the forms of those who are condemned will be changed, and also the glory of those who are justified.

5For the appearance of those who now act wickedly will become worse than it is now, as they suffer torment.

6But the glory of those who were justified in their time, and those who had understanding in their life, and those who planted in their heart the root of wisdom—

7then their splendor will be glorified in transformations, and the form of their faces will be changed into the light of their beauty, so that they may acquire and receive the world that does not die, which is promised to them.

8But they will especially be confounded—those who rejected the law and stopped their ears so as not to hear wisdom and not to receive understanding—

9when they see that those whom they now count as nothing are at rest and glorified with the angels,

10while they themselves are reckoned among the heaps of sins, and the evil of their forms wastes away still more. For first they see, and afterward they go away to be tormented.

11But for those who were delivered by their works, and for whom the law was hope, and understanding expectation, and wisdom confidence, and purity a crown,

12Wonders will appear to them in their time. For they will see that world which is now invisible to them, and that time which is now hidden from them.

13And that time will no longer grow old for them. For the expanses of Paradise will be spread out before them, and the beauty of the majesty of the living beings beneath the throne will be shown to them, and all the companies of the angels, who are now restrained by my word so that they are not seen, and are kept by command to stand in their places until their appointed coming.

14Then the excellence of the righteous will be greater than that of the angels.

15For the first will receive the last, whom they were expecting, and the last those they had heard had passed away.

16For they have been delivered from this world of affliction and have laid down the burden of distresses.

17By what, then, did people lose their life, and for what did those who were on the earth exchange their soul?

18For they chose for themselves this present time, which cannot pass apart from anguish, and they chose for themselves that time whose outcomes are full of groanings and evils; and they rejected the world that does not age those who come to it, and they rejected the time of glory, so that they might not come to the honor of which I told you before.