It shall be well with the righteous man.
Who ever seeks the grave of the unrighteous man? Of what use would it be to him? But the grave of the righteous man all men seek, and they fence it round, and raise a monument.
Of what use is it to them? It is the confession of the world, that the righteous man lives even after death, and the unrighteous man vanishes like a furrow on the water of the sea!
Thou art the righteousness of the righteous man, O Living God. His righteousness is not in the laws of men, which men swiftly write and lazily fulfill. Thy presence is his righteousness, and every breath of Thine—his new law.
The great righteous man has no old laws, nor does he care for laws written on paper. This morning since dawn he feels that Thou writest upon his heart and mind, and he reads.
Hundreds of oppressors and scurrying liars rise up against the righteous man, and rejoice when they squeeze his throat shut, that he may not speak. But the oppressors and scurrying liars admit within themselves, that were it left to them, all the wheels of the world would be broken from morning till dark. In solitude, which weighs upon the crooked-minded and the crooked-pathed like the Dread Judgment, the oppressors and scurrying liars admit, that inasmuch as the world still exists, it exists solely because of the righteous—because of the right-minded and the right-pathed.
Who is righteous apart from the God-bearers? No one, O Lord.
He who brings Thee into the world brings life into the shell of life, brings water into empty wells, and song into throats grown mute.
Like a cloud of dry smoke, without thunder and rain, which the winds of the heights all-powerfully scatter into nothing—truly, such is this whole world without God-bearers. The whole world is dry smoke, to which only a God-bearer can give thunder and rain, and make it a true cloud.
Cloud resembles cloud, and man resembles man, and world resembles world.
But one cloud is deceptive dry smoke, the other is full of thunder and rain.
One man is existent, the other non-existent, though they resemble one another. One world is, and the other is not, though it seems that both are.
Before Thou art born on earth, O Lord, the earth is a non-existent shadow; and all beings on earth are non-existent shadows.
Thy birth is the entry of electricity into a dry cloud.
Thy words are the rain, that makes the cloud a cloud.
Thy miracles have made men out of vampires.
Thy blood, and tears, and sweat have filled the empty shadow of the world with reality.
It shall ever be well with the righteous man. His grave will ever be sought. Behold, the grave of the righteous man contains more strength than living unrighteous men. For the unrighteous are shadows of dry smoke.
Blessed is the people with righteous men!