Jubilees 10:1-36

¹And in the third week of this jubilee the unclean demons began to lead astray the children of the sons of Noah, and to make them err and destroy them.

²And the sons of Noah came to Noah their father, and they told him concerning the demons which were leading astray, blinding, and slaying his sons' sons.

³And he prayed before the Lord his God, and said: 'God of the spirits of all flesh, who have shown mercy to me, and have saved me and my sons from the waters of the flood, and have not caused me to perish as you did the sons of perdition; for your grace has been great toward me, and great has been your mercy to my soul. Let your grace be lifted up upon my sons, and do not let wicked spirits rule over them, lest they should destroy them from the earth.

⁴But bless me and my sons, that we may increase and multiply and replenish the earth.

⁵And you know how your Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my day. As for these spirits which are living, imprison them and hold them fast in the place of condemnation, and do not let them bring destruction on the sons of your servant, my God; for these are malignant, and created in order to destroy.

⁶And do not let them rule over the spirits of the living; for you alone can exercise dominion over them. And do not let them have power over the sons of the righteous from now on and forevermore.'

⁷And the Lord our God bade us bind them all.

⁸And the chief of the spirits, Mastema, came and said: 'Lord, Creator, let some of them remain before me, and let them listen to my voice, and do all that I shall say to them; for if some of them are not left to me, I shall not be able to execute the power of my will on the sons of men; for these are for corruption and leading astray before my judgment, for great is the wickedness of the sons of men.'

⁹And he said: 'Let a tenth part of them remain before him, and let nine parts descend into the place of condemnation.'

¹⁰And one of us he commanded that we should teach Noah all their medicines; for he knew that they would not walk in uprightness, nor strive in righteousness.

¹¹And we did according to all his words: all the malignant evil ones we bound in the place of condemnation, and a tenth part of them we left that they might be subject before Satan on the earth.

¹²And we explained to Noah all the medicines of their diseases, together with their seductions, how he might heal them with herbs of the earth.

¹³And Noah wrote down all things in a book as we instructed him concerning every kind of medicine. Thus the evil spirits were prevented from harming the sons of Noah.

¹⁴And he gave all that he had written to Shem, his eldest son; for he loved him exceedingly above all his sons.

¹⁵And Noah slept with his fathers, and was buried on Mount Lubar in the land of Ararat.

¹⁶Nine hundred and fifty years he completed in his life, nineteen jubilees and two weeks and five years. [1659 A.M.]

¹⁷And in his life on earth he excelled the children of men, except for Enoch, because of the righteousness in which he was perfect. For Enoch's office was ordained for a testimony to the generations of the world, so that he should recount all the deeds of generation to generation, until the day of judgment.

¹⁸And in the thirty-third jubilee, in the first year of the second week, Peleg took himself a wife, whose name was Lomna the daughter of Sina'ar, and she bore him a son in the fourth year of this week, and he called his name Reu; for he said: 'Behold, the children of men have become evil through the wicked purpose of building for themselves a city and a tower in the land of Shinar.'

¹⁹For they departed from the land of Ararat eastward to Shinar; for in his days they built the city and the tower, saying, 'Come, let us ascend by it into heaven.'

²⁰And they began to build, and in the fourth week they made brick with fire, and the bricks served them for stone, and the clay with which they cemented them together was asphalt which comes out of the sea, and out of the fountains of water in the land of Shinar.

²¹And they built it: forty-three years [1645-1688 A.M.] they were building it; its breadth was 203 bricks, and the height (of a brick) was a third of one; its height amounted to 5433 cubits and 2 palms, and (the extent of one wall was) thirteen stades (and of the other thirty stades).

²²And the Lord our God said to us: 'Behold, they are one people, and this they begin to do, and now nothing will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech, and they may be dispersed into cities and nations, and one purpose will no longer remain with them until the day of judgment.'

²³And the Lord descended, and we descended with him to see the city and the tower which the children of men had built.

²⁴And he confounded their language, and they no longer understood one another's speech, and they then ceased to build the city and the tower.

²⁵For this reason the whole land of Shinar is called Babel, because the Lord there confounded all the language of the children of men, and from there they were dispersed into their cities, each according to his language and his nation.

²⁶And the Lord sent a mighty wind against the tower and overthrew it upon the earth, and behold, it was between Asshur and Babylon in the land of Shinar, and they called its name 'Overthrow.'

²⁷In the fourth week, in the first year [1688 A.M.], at its beginning, in the thirty-fourth jubilee, they were dispersed from the land of Shinar.

²⁸And Ham and his sons went into the land which he was to occupy, which he acquired as his portion in the land of the south.

²⁹And Canaan saw the land of Lebanon to the river of Egypt, that it was very good, and he did not go into the land of his inheritance to the west (that is, to the sea), but he dwelt in the land of Lebanon, eastward and westward from the border of Jordan and from the border of the sea.

³⁰And Ham, his father, and Cush and Mizraim his brothers said to him: 'You have settled in a land which is not yours, and which did not fall to us by lot. Do not do so; for if you do, you and your sons will fall in the land and be accursed through sedition; for by sedition you have settled, and by sedition will your children fall, and you shall be rooted out forever.

³¹Do not dwell in the dwelling of Shem; for to Shem and to his sons it came by their lot.

³²Cursed are you, and cursed shall you be beyond all the sons of Noah, by the curse by which we bound ourselves by an oath in the presence of the holy judge, and in the presence of Noah our father.'

³³But he did not listen to them, and dwelt in the land of Lebanon from Hamath to the entering of Egypt, he and his sons, until this day.

³⁴And for this reason that land is named Canaan.

³⁵And Japheth and his sons went toward the sea and dwelt in the land of their portion, and Madai saw the land of the sea and it did not please him, and he begged a portion from Ham and Asshur and Arpachshad, his wife's brother, and he dwelt in the land of Media, near to his wife's brother until this day.

³⁶And he called his dwelling-place, and the dwelling-place of his sons, Media, after the name of their father Madai.