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Pahlavi Texts, Part II (SBE18), E.W. West, tr. [1882], at sacred-texts.com


CHAPTER XIII.

1. The twelfth question is that which you ask thus: In the fourth night do they score off (barâ angârênd) the sin by the good works, and does he go by the residue (bôn); or do they inflict punishment on him for the sin which has happened to him, and give reward and recompense for the good works which he has done?

2. The reply is this, that at dawn of the third night the account is prepared it is said, and about the sin which he has atoned for, and the good work which is its equivalent (âvâr) there is no need for account, since the account is about the good works which may be appropriated by him as his own, and about the sin which may remain in him as its origin. 3. Because the origin of it (the sin atoned for) remains distinct, and it is cancelled (astardŏ)

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by it (the good work), they balance it therewith; and they weigh the excess and deficiency, as it may be, of the other good works and sin.

4. Of those living, at the just, impartial (akafsisnŏ) balance the man of proper habits (dâdŏ), whose good works are more, when sin has happened to him, undergoes a temporary (vidanâîk) punishment and becomes eternally cleansed by the good works; and he of improper habits, of much sin and little good works, attains temporary enjoyment by those good works, but through the sin which they perceive in him he is suffering punishment unto the resurrection.


Next: Chapter XIV