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XXIII

(THE LAST JUDGMENT) 3

The judgment of God for the righteous: "Come unto me ye blessed of my Father, inherit the eternal glory prepared by my Father for you since the beginning of the world. You have kept my commandments; you have done penance when you sinned against me. Therefore come ye to heaven." 4 Then he turns his gaze upon the sinners with whom he is angered. "Depart from me ye accursed of my Father into the eternal fire of hell which is prepared for the Devil by my Father. You have despised me, your Father, me, your Redeemer. You have despised my commandments with the commandment of the Devil. Go ye therefore with him to eternal misery." Then the wicked men shall go to hell, but the good men shall go to Heaven with our Father, God, to eternal glory comparable to the glory of Jehoshaphat. There are three men, the true servants of God, well beloved of God. Elias, and Methuselah and Enoch are their names; they are living to this day. They are ordained by God to guard his seats. Our Lord God shall call a reckoning in a valley in the land, a great open savannah. There he shall sit upon his throne. The entire world shall assemble <there>. The sheep shall be set apart; they shall be on his right hand. The goats shall be set apart; they shall be on his left hand. On his left shall be the wicked men; those who have not fulfilled all the commandments of God shall then go to the eternal misery of hell, sunk in the earth, oppressed by <the Sins> of our first parents. 5 But the

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good men who have fulfilled the commandments of God shall be at the right hand of the great Lord God. "Come, ye men blessed of my Father and take the kingdom prepared for you since the beginning of the world." Then a great cloud shall gather, black in the sky, 1 /
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down to the face of the earth. Like a trumpet is the joyful song of the Angels. It is beautiful beyond comparison. The true God shall arise, the Lord of heaven and earth.


Footnotes

163:3 The following is an account of the Christian Last Judgment apparently written by a Spanish missionary. The text seems to adhere too closely to the rules laid down by the Spanish writers on Maya grammar for it to have been written by an Indian. Nevertheless it is written in excellent Maya and probably dates from the Seventeenth Century. It will be of interest to compare this text with the "Carta de los Diez Caciques" written in 1567 and published by Juan Martinez in his edition of the Motul Dictionary. The latter is formal but extremely idiomatic. Our present text, although we do not know the date when it was written originally, shows that the Maya idiom had changed in its forms of expression since the middle of the Sixteenth Century.

The present translator has availed himself freely of Sr. Martinez' Spanish translation of this passage (Martinez 1928, pp. 137-138).

163:4 Matthew, chap. 25.

163:5 Alternative translation: told of by our first parents (Adam and Eve).

164:1 Possible alternative translation: Then a great cloud of stars shall gather. Cf. Revelation 14.14: "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man."


Next: XXIV: Prophecies of a New Religion