Aligned sentence by sentence
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— established for all time. This is because all the books of the prophets and the books of scholars from every people, however numerous, contain only three foundations.
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The first in order is command and prohibition — these are one category. The second is reward and punishment — these are their fruit. The third is the account of whoever acted rightly in the land and prospered, and whoever acted corruptly and perished.
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For complete reform is only achieved by combining these three. By way of illustration: like one who visits a feverish patient and determines that the cause of his illness is an excess of blood.
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If he says: 'Do not eat meat, do not drink wine' — he has treated him, but not completely. If he adds: 'So that pleurisy does not strike you' — he has added to the treatment.
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But it is still not complete until he says: 'As it struck so-and-so.' When he does that, the treatment is complete.
Then I say: the Wise One (mighty and exalted), knowing from His knowledge that His statutes and His informing accounts would require, over time, transmitters so that they might be established for later generations as they were for the first,
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— He placed in minds a capacity to receive true transmitted report, and in the soul a place of rest for it, so that His books and accounts could serve their purpose.
Aligned sentence by sentence
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— people would not obey their ruler's command or prohibition except in the moment they saw him with their eyes and heard his words with their ears; as soon as he was absent, their acceptance of his command and prohibition would dissolve.
If that were the case, governance would collapse and many people would perish.
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And if there were no reliable transmitted report in the world, a person could not know that this estate is his father's inheritance or that this is his grandfather's legacy — indeed he could not even know he is his mother's son, let alone his father's son.
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The scriptures have stated that reliable transmitted report has the same validity as something perceived by sight, as they say: 'For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see; send to Kedar and examine carefully' (Jer. 2:10).
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When we apply ourselves to these two considerations — how we can trust transmitted report despite them — we find that reason establishes: conjecture and deliberate fabrication occur in secret only among individuals.
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As for a large group — their conjectures cannot all agree; and if they conspired and colluded to fabricate a report, that would not remain hidden from the generality of them.
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Section 7. Having set out these matters, I think I should follow these words with a discussion of the abrogation of law.