3. From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in opposition to life and innocence, and to the Will of God Himself. ²Where can such opposition lie but in the sick minds of the insane, dedicated to madness and set against the peace of Heaven? ³One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. ⁴He knows of neither sin nor its results. ⁵The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they live. ⁶They are not following His Will; they are opposing it.

4. And what is the black-draped body they would bury? ²A body which they dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, offered to sin to feed upon and keep itself alive; a thing condemned, damned by its maker and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself. ³You who believe you have condemned the Son of God to this are arrogant. ⁴But you who would release him are but honoring the Will of his Creator. ⁵The arrogance of sin, the pride of guilt, the sepulchre of separation, all are part of your unrecognized dedication to death. ⁶The glitter of guilt you laid upon the body would kill it. ⁷For what the ego loves, it kills for its obedience. ⁸But what obeys it not, it cannot kill.

5. You have another dedication that would keep the body incorruptible and perfect as long as it is useful for your holy purpose. ²The body no more dies than it can feel. ³It does nothing. ⁴Of itself it is neither corruptible nor incorruptible. ⁵It is nothing. ⁶It is the result of a tiny, mad idea of corruption that can be corrected. ⁷For God has answered this insane idea with His Own; an Answer which left Him not, and therefore brings the Creator to the awareness of every mind which heard His Answer and accepted It.

6. You who are dedicated to the incorruptible have been given through your acceptance, the power to release from corruption. ²What better way to teach the first and fundamental principle in a course on miracles than by showing you the one that seems to be the hardest can be accomplished first? ³The body can but serve your purpose. ⁴As you look on it, so will it seem to be. ⁵Death, were it true, would be the final and complete disruption of communication, which is the ego’s goal.

7. Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they call to it, and bid it come to save them from communication. ²For death is seen as safety, the great dark savior from the light of truth, the answer to the Answer, the silencer of the Voice that speaks for God. ³Yet the retreat to death is not the end of conflict. ⁴Only God’s Answer is its end. ⁵The obstacle of your seeming love for death that peace must flow across seems to be very great. ⁶For in it lie hidden all the ego’s secrets, all its strange devices for deception, all its sick ideas and weird imaginings. ⁷Here is the final end of union, the triumph of the ego’s making over creation, the victory of lifelessness on Life Itself.

8. Under the dusty edge of its distorted world the ego would lay the Son of God, slain by its orders, proof in his decay that God Himself is powerless before the ego’s might, unable to protect the life that He created against the ego’s savage wish to kill. ²My brother, child of our Father, this is a dream of death. ³There is no funeral, no dark altars, no grim commandments nor twisted rituals of condemnation to which the body leads you. ⁴Ask not release of it. ⁵But free it from the merciless and unrelenting orders you laid upon it, and forgive it what you ordered it to do. ⁶In its exaltation you commanded it to die, for only death could conquer life. ⁷And what but insanity could look upon the defeat of God, and think it real?

9. The fear of death will go as its appeal is yielded to love’s real attraction. ²The end of sin, which nestles quietly in the safety of your relationship, protected by your union with your brother, and ready to grow into a mighty force for God is very near. ³The infancy of salvation is carefully guarded by love, preserved from every thought that would attack it, and quietly made ready to fulfill the mighty task for which it was given you. ⁴Your newborn purpose is nursed by angels, cherished by the Holy Spirit and protected by God Himself. ⁵It needs not your protection; it is yours. ⁶For it is deathless, and within it lies the end of death.

10. What danger can assail the wholly innocent? ²What can attack the guiltless? ³What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness? ⁴What has been given you, even in its infancy, is in full communication with God and you. ⁵In its tiny hands it holds, in perfect safety, every miracle you will perform, held out to you. ⁶The miracle of life is ageless, born in time but nourished in eternity. ⁷Behold this infant, to whom you gave a resting place by your forgiveness of your brother, and see in it the Will of God. ⁸Here is the babe of Bethlehem reborn. ⁹And everyone who gives him shelter will follow him, not to the cross, but to the resurrection and the life.

11. When anything seems to you to be a source of fear, when any situation strikes you with terror and makes your body tremble and the cold sweat of fear comes over it, remember it is always for one reason; the ego has perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. ²Remember, then, that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source, for they must stand for something other than themselves. ³Their meaning cannot lie in them, but must be sought in what they represent. ⁴And they may thus mean everything or nothing, according to the truth or falsity of the idea which they reflect. ⁵Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning, judge it not. ⁶Remember the holy Presence of the One given to you to be the Source of judgment. ⁷Give it to Him to judge for you, and say:

⁸Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me.
 ⁹Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction.
 ¹⁰Teach me how not to make of it an obstacle to peace, but let You use it for me, to facilitate its coming.