JSR: Prophet, tell me all these mysteries, reveal all these secrets, that I may in turn reveal them to the world. What lies beyond the grave? Are we sent back to another womb, as the Hindus say? Are we judged by God, as the Muslims say, and rewarded or punished forevermore? Or ought we to serve God for God’s sake, as say the Jews, to be forever put into darkness once our service is over? Tell me truly: I wish to know.

Ezekiel: In the beginning, when God created the cosmos, he saw that the brighter was the light on the right hand side, the denser was the darkness on the left. The bliss of those in the heavens only existed by virtue of the agony of those in hell, and the agony of those in hell only existed by virtue of the bliss of those in the heavens. God said, "Truly I am a just God, truly I will put no innocent soul in hell, truly I will give no undeserving souls the bliss of the heavens. Here is what I shall do: I shall give each soul a crucible and test, and the ones who deserve punishment shall be punished, and the ones who deserve reward may be blessed." When the angel revealed this to me I was very troubled, and I said, "But is not an infinite punishment injustice for a finite crime? No matter the crimes done on earth, is it not still injustice to give the criminal infinite suffering, eternal suffering for crimes whose injuries have long since healed and been forgotten?" And God said,

"I shall separate the good from the wicked,

and the good shall bless the good,

and the wicked shall torment the wicked.

Heaven and hell

are precisely the same,

except for the character of their inhabitants.

As long as the wicked in hell

continue to torment one another,

they shall stay there forever.

And it is very hard for them to cease from this,

for in this realm they know nothing else.