upt men and lead them astray.

Concerning the future life we read only that those who hold firmly to the
law are "for eternal life,"(69) or, as it is elsewhere expressed, "have
the assurance that they shall live a thousand generations." To a
punishment of the wicked after death(70) or to a resurrection of the dead
there is no allusion whatever.

The moral teachings of the sect have been frequently touched upon above in
speaking of their rules of life. Man is led into sin not only by the
snares of Belial, but by his own sinful inclination and adulterous eyes (2
16; seemingly the _yeser hara'_ of the rabbis). It was through these that
the Watchers fell; by them the generation of the flood sinned, and the
sons of Jacob, and their descendants in Egypt and in Canaan, and brought
judgment upon themselves (2 14 ff.). We have seen that the sect insisted
upon monogamy, and perhaps rejected divorce altogether. Particular
emphasis is laid in several places on the commandments, "thou shalt not
take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people,"
"thou shalt reprove thy neighbor and not bear sin because of him" (Lev. 19
17, 18).(71) Thus, at the beginning of the legal part of the book, the
delivery of a fellow Israelite to the gentiles so that he is condemned by
their law is said to fall under this prohibition, and further, "any man of
those who enter into the covenant who brings up against his neighbor a
matter not in the nature of a reproof before witnesses, but which he
brings up in anger, or tells it to his elders to bring the man into
disrepute, he is one that takes vengeance and bears a grudge." It is
forbidden also to exact of another an oath except in the presence of the
judges; he who does so transgresses the law which forbids a man to take
justice into his own hands. Every one who enters into the covenant pledges
himself not only not to rob the poor and make widows his spoil, but to
love his neighbor as himself, to seek the welfare of his fellow, and to
sustain the poor and needy. As regards the relations of the members of the
sect to gentiles, it is forbidden to shed the blood of a gentile or to
take aught of their property, "in order to give them no occasion to
blaspheme" (12 6 f.), that is, to prevent the profaning of God's name (15
3), a motive frequently urged in similar connection in the rabbinical
writings. On the other hand, no man may sell to gentiles clean animals or
birds, lest they offer them