round it, and to prevent us from
going into it.

7 If this be really so, O Eve, where shall we live? And where shall we
flee from before the face of the Lord? Since, in regards to the
garden, He will not let us live in it, and He has deprived us of the
good things thereof; but He has placed us in this cave, in which we
have borne darkness, trials and hardships, until at last we have found
comfort therein.

8 But now that He has brought us out into another land, who knows what
may happen in it? And who knows but that the darkness of that land may
be far greater than the darkness of this land?

9 Who knows what may happen in that land by day or by night? And who
knows whether it will be far or near, O Eve? Where it will please God
to put us, may be far from the garden, O Eve? Or where God will
prevent us from beholding Him, because we have transgressed His
commandment, and because we have made requests of Him at all times?

10 O Eve, if God will bring us into a strange land other than this, in
which we find consolation, it must be to put our souls to death, and
blot out our name from the face of the earth.

11 O Eve, if we are further alienated from the garden and from God,
where shall we find Him again, and ask Him to give us gold, incense,
myrrh, and some fruit of the fig-tree?

12 Where shall we find Him, to comfort us a second time? Where shall
we find Him, that He may think of us, as regards the covenant He has
made on our behalf?"

13 Then Adam said no more. And they kept looking, He and Eve, towards
the cave, and at the fire that flared up around it.

14 But that fire was from Satan. For he had gathered trees and dry
grasses, and had carried and brought them to the cave, and had set fire
to them, in order to consume the cave and what was in it.

15 So that Adam and Eve should be left in sorrow, and he should cut off
their trust in God, and make them deny Him.

16 But by the mercy of God he could not burn the cave, for God sent His
angel around the cave to guard it from such a fire, until it went out.

17 And this fire lasted from noon-day until the break of day. That was
the forty-fifth day.

Chapter XLIV - The power of fire over man.

1 Yet Adam and Eve were standing and looking at the fire, and unable to
come near the cave from their dread of the fire.

2 And Satan kept on bringing trees and throwing them into the fire,
until the flames of the fire rose up on high, and covered the w