The Book of Enoch 21

How to read these pages: the text itself comes first, verse by verse, in the volume's own translation. Beneath each verse stands its Meaning — a rendering of what the passage's terms name in the inner life, drawn from the correspondences the text itself uses. The text is never altered; the meaning is offered, not imposed.

Charles translation (1917)

1And I proceeded to where things were chaotic.

And I — Enoch, the faculty that walks with God — proceeded to where things were chaotic: consciousness without form, unruled by the divine order.

2And I saw there something horrible: I saw neither a heaven above nor a firmly founded earth, but a place chaotic and horrible.

And I saw there something horrible: I saw neither an inner realm above nor a firmly founded outer life, but a place chaotic and horrible — a state with no heaven to govern it and no stable consciousness to stand on.

3And there I saw seven stars of the heaven bound together in it, like great mountains and burning with fire.

And there I saw seven star-faculties bound together in it, like great exalted states, and burning with fire — knowledges of truth held bound, consumed by the judgment-fire.

4Then I said: 'For what sin are they bound, and on what account have they been cast in hither?'

Then I said: For what error — what acting apart from the divine order — are they bound, and on what account have they been cast in here?

5Then said Uriel, one of the holy angels, who was with me, and was chief over them, and said: 'Enoch, why dost thou ask, and why art thou eager for the truth?

Then said Uriel — the illumination-faculty, set over the luminaries — one of the holy divine ideas, who was with me and was chief over them: Enoch, why do you ask, and why are you eager for the truth?

6These are of the number of the stars ⌈of heaven⌉, which have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and are bound here till ten thousand years, the time entailed by their sins, are consummated.'

These are of the number of the stars of the inner realm, which have transgressed the commandment — the plain rule of the inner order — of the indwelling LORD, and are bound here till ten thousand years, the time entailed by their errors, are completed.

7And from thence I went to another place, which was still more horrible than the former, and I saw a horrible thing: a great fire there which burnt and blazed, and the place was cleft as far as the abyss, being full of great descending columns of fire: neither its extent or magnitude could I see, nor could I conjecture.

And from there I went to another place, which was still more horrible than the former, and I saw a horrible thing: a great fire there which burnt and blazed — truth's consuming judgment — and the place was cleft as far as the abyss, the subconscious deep, being full of great descending columns of fire; neither its extent nor its magnitude could I see, nor could I conjecture.

8Then I said: 'How fearful is the place and how terrible to look upon!'

Then I said: How fearful is the place, and how terrible to look upon!

9Then Uriel answered me, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: 'Enoch, why hast thou such fear and affright?' And I answered: 'Because of this fearful place, and because of the spectacle of the pain.'

Then Uriel answered me, one of the holy divine ideas who was with me, and said unto me: Enoch, why have you such fear and affright? And I answered: Because of this fearful place, and because of the spectacle of the pain.

10And he said ⌈⌈unto me⌉⌉: 'This place is the prison of the angels, and here they will be imprisoned for ever.'

And he said unto me: This place is the prison of the angels — the bound state of faculties that transgressed their order — and here they will be imprisoned for the lasting duration of their consequence.

Companion volume to The Why Bible — 1 Enoch in R. H. Charles's translation (1917), rendered in its spiritual meanings. First final edition, October 2026.