CHAP. XVI.

The good branch of the family is still afraid of the children of Cain.

THEN Mahalaleel stood over his people, and fed them in righteousness and innocence, and watched them to see they held no intercourse with the children of Cain.

2 He also continued in the Cave of Treasures praying and ministering before the body of our father Adam, asking God for mercy on himself and on his people; until he was eight hundred and seventy years old, when he fell sick.

3 Then all his children gathered unto him, to see him, and to ask for his blessing on them all, ere he left this world.

4 Then Mahalaleel arose and sat on his bed, his tears streaming down his face, and he called his eldest son Jared, who came to him.

5 He then kissed his face, and said to him, "O Jared, my son, I adjure thee by Him who made heaven and earth, to watch over thy people, and to feed them in righteousness and in innocence; and not to let one of them go down from this Holy Mountain to the children of Cain, lest he perish with them.

6 "Hear, O my son, hereafter there shall come a great destruction upon this earth on account of them; God will be angry with the world, and will destroy them with waters.

7 "But I also know that thy children will not hearken to thee, and that they will go down from this mountain and hold intercourse with the children of Cain, and that they shall perish with them.

8 "O my son! teach them, and watch over them, that no guilt attach to thee on their account."

9 Mahalaleel said, moreover,

to his son Jared, "When I die, embalm my body and lay it in the Cave of Treasures, by the bodies of my fathers; then stand thou by my body and pray to God; and take care of them, and fulfil thy ministry before them, until thou enterest into rest thyself."

10 Mahalaleel then blessed all his children; and then lay down on his bed, and entered into rest like his fathers.

11 But when Jared saw that his father Mahalaleel was dead, he wept, and sorrowed, and embraced and kissed his hands and his feet; and so did all his children.

12 And his children embalmed him carefully, and laid him by the bodies of his fathers. Then they arose, and mourned for him forty days.