Then the ancient old man Methuselah who remained on the mountain with Noah's sons, lived 987 years and then sickened; and his sickness was such that, on account of it, he must depart from this world.
2When Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, became aware of it, they came to him with their wives, and wept before him, and said,
3"O our father, and our elder, bless us, and pray God to have mercy on us when thou art gone from us."
4Then Methuselah said to them with a sorrowful heart, "Hear me, O my dear children; for none of our fathers are left, except you, eight souls.
5The Lord God created our father Adam and our mother Eve, and from them filled the earth with people in the neighbourhood of the garden, and multiplied their seed.
6Yet they have not kept His commandment, and He will destroy them.
7Yet had they kept His commandment, He would then have filled heaven and earth with them."
8Yet will I ask the Lord my God to bless you, to multiply you, and to spread your race in a strange land, to which ye shall go.
9"And now, O my children, behold, God will bring you inside an ark unto a land to which ye have never been.
10And the Lord God of all our pure fathers, be with you!"
11And the glorious gifts God bestowed on our father Adam from the garden in this blessed cave of treasures, may He bestow them on you also!
12"These are the three glorious gifts which God made to Adam.
13The first is Kingdom wherein God made Adam king over His works.
14The second glorious gift is Priesthood, in that God breathed into his face a spirit of life.
15And the third glorious gift is Prophecy, for Adam prophesied concerning what God thought of doing.
16"Yet I will ask the Lord my God, to bestow those three glorious gifts on your posterity."
17Then Methuselah said also to Noah, "O Noah, thou art blessed of God.
18I warn thee of the flood and tell thee that I am going from thee to be with all our fathers that have gone before me. Yet thou, who shalt be left alone with thy children on this holy mountain, keep the commandment I give thee, and forsake not anything of what I have told thee.
19Behold my God shall quickly bring a flood upon the earth; embalm my body, and lay it in the cave of treasures."
20Then take thy wife with thy sons and their wives, and go down from this holy mountain, and take with thee the body of our father Adam.
21Go into the ark and lay it there, until the waters of the Flood are assuaged from off the face of the earth.
22O my son, when thou are about to die, command thy first-born son Shem, to take Melchizedec, son of Cainan, and grandson of Arphaxad; for that Melchizedec is priest of the Most High God; and to take with them the body of our father Adam from within the ark, and remove it and lay it in the earth. "
23And Melchizedec shall stand ministering on that mountain that is in the middle of the earth, before the body of our father Adam for ever.
24For from that place, O Noah my son, God shall work salvation for Adam and for all of his seed that believe in God."
25Methuselah said also to Noah and to his sons, "The angel of God will go with you, until you come to that place in the middle of the earth."
26Again Methuselah said to Noah, "O my son, let him who ministers unto God and before the body of our father Adam, have a clothing of skin, and be girt about his loins with leather.
27Let him wear no ornament, yet let his raiment be poor; let him be alone, f and stand praying our Lord God to watch over the body of our father Adam; for it is a body of great value before God.
28And let him continue in his ministry, he the priest of the Most High God; for he is well pleasing unto God, and so is the ministry he fulfils before God."
29After this Methuselah commanded Noah saying, "Mind, then, all these commandments, and keep them."
30Then Methuselah's hands were loosened; he ceased speaking; he gradually closed his eyes, and entered into rest like all his fathers; his tears at the time streaming down his cheeks,
31and his heart grieving at being separated from them all, yet mostly because of that mountain of the garden, on which not one of them was left; for God was purposed to destroy all creatures, and to blot them out from the face of the earth.
32The rest of Methuselah took place when he was 967 years old, on the 12th of Magabit on a Sunday.
33Then Noah and his sons embalmed him, weeping and sorrowing over him, and laid him in the cave of treasures.
34And they wailed over him with a great wailing, they and their wives, 40 days.
35And when mourning and grief over Methu selah were ended, Noah and his sons began to do as Methuselah had commanded them.