8
you would perhaps have said to me: ‘I haven't descended into the abyss nor as yet into hell, nor have I ever ascended to heaven.'
9
But I've only asked you here about fire and wind and the day you have passed through, things you can't exist without, and you haven't answered me about them."
10
He said to me: "You can't even understand the things that are yours, which you have grown up with.
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How then can your mind contain the way of the Most High? How can a person who is already corrupted by the corrupt world understand the realm beyond corruption?" I fell on my face
12
and said to him, "It would have been better not to have come into being than to come here, live in the middle of wickedness, suffer, and not understand why."
13
He answered me: "I went forth to a forest of trees on the plain, and they devised a plan
14
and said: ‘Come, let's go and make war on the sea so that it may recede before us, and let's make for ourselves more forests.'
15
And likewise, the waves of the sea also formed a plan and said, ‘Come, let's go up and subdue the forest on the plain so that there too we may complete another region for ourselves.'
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But the plan of the forest came to naught, for fire came and consumed it.
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Likewise also the plan of the waves of the sea, for the sand stood firm and prevented it.
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If then you were judge of these, which would you begin to justify and which to condemn?"