cast away
what had been prescribed, and perpetrated what had been forbidden them in
the Book. They have abandoned their God, and clung unto their desires.
They truly have strayed and are in error. They read the verses and deny
them. They behold the clear tokens and turn aside. They truly are lost in
strange doubt.

We have admonished Our loved ones to fear God, a fear which is the
fountainhead of all goodly deeds and virtues. It is the commander of the
hosts of justice in the city of Baha. Happy the man that hath entered the
shadow of its luminous standard, and laid fast hold thereon. He, verily,
is of the Companions of the Crimson Ark, which hath been mentioned in the
Qayyum-i-Asma.

Say: O people of God! Adorn your temples with the adornment of
trustworthiness and piety. Help, then, your Lord with the hosts of goodly
deeds and a praiseworthy character. We have forbidden you dissension and
conflict in My Books, and My Scriptures, and My Scrolls, and My Tablets,
and have wished thereby naught else save your exaltation and advancement.
Unto this testify the heavens and the stars thereof, and the sun and the
radiance thereof, and the trees and the leaves thereof, and the seas and
the waves thereof, and the earth and the treasures thereof. We pray God to
assist His loved ones, and aid them in that which beseemeth them in this
blest, this mighty, and wondrous station. Moreover We beseech Him to
graciously enable those who surround Me to observe that which My Pen of
Glory hath enjoined upon them.

O Jalil! Upon thee be My glory and My loving providence. Verily We have
enjoined the people to do what is meet and seemly and yet they have
committed such things as have caused My heart and My Pen to lament.
Incline thine ear to that which is sent down from the heaven of My Will
and the realm of My good-pleasure. I sorrow not for My captivity, nor for
the things that have befallen Me at the hand of Mine enemies. Nay, My
sorrows are occasioned by those who claim to be related to Me and yet
commit that which causeth the voice of My lamentations to be lifted up and
My tears to flow. We have exhorted them at length in various Tablets and
beseech God to graciously assist them, to enable them to draw nigh unto
Him and to confirm them in that which would bring peace to the hearts and
tranquillity to the souls and would stay their hands from whatsoever
ill-beseemeth His days.

Say, O My loved ones in My lands! Give ye ear unto the coun