1 Thus he said to me: "You have seen a ladder with twelve steps, each step having two human faces which kept changing their appearance.
2 The ladder is this age,
3 and the twelve steps are the periods of this age.
4 But the twenty-four faces are the kings of the ungodly nations of this age.
5 Under these kings the children of your children and the generations of your sons will be interrogated.
6 These will rise up against the iniquity of your grandsons.
7 And this place will be made desolate by the four ascents ... through the sins of your grandsons.
8 And around the property of your forefathers a palace will be built, a temple in the name of your God and of (the God) of your fathers,
9 and in the provocations of your children it will become desertedf by the four ascentsg of this age.
10 For you saw the first four bustsh which were striking against the steps . . .
11 angels ascending and descending, and the busts amid the steps.
12 The Most High will raise up kings from the grandsons of your brother Esau, and they will receive all the nobles of the tribes of the earth who will have maltreated your seed.
13 And they will be delivered into his hands and he will be vexedj by them.
14 And he will hold them by force and rule over them, and they will not be able to oppose him until the day when his thought will go out against them to serve idols and (to offer) sacrifices of the dead.
15 . . .(He will) do violence to all those in his kingdom who will be revealed in such guilt, both to the highest (man)l from your tribe and kfalkonagargailyuya.
16 Know, Jacob, that your descendants shall be exiles in a strangen land, and they will afflict them with slavery and inflict wounds on them every day.
17 But the LORD will judge the people for whom they slave.