1. The one remaining problem that you have is that you see an interval between the time when you forgive, and will receive the benefits of trusting in your brother. 2This but reflects the little you would keep between you and your brother, that you and he might be a little separate. 3For time and space are one illusion, which takes different forms. 4If it has been projected beyond your mind you think of it as time. 5The nearer it is brought to where it is, the more you think of it in terms of space.
2. There is a distance you would keep apart from your brother, and this space you perceive as time because you still believe you are external to him. 2This makes trust impossible. 3And you cannot believe that trust would settle every problem now. 4Thus do you think it safer to remain a little careful and a little watchful of interests perceived as separate. 5From this perception you cannot conceive of gaining what forgiveness offers now. 6The interval you think lies in between the giving and receiving of the gift seems to be one in which you sacrifice and suffer loss. 7You see eventual salvation, not immediate results.
3. Salvation is immediate. 2Unless you so perceive it, you will be afraid of it, believing that the risk of loss is great between the time its purpose is made yours and its effects will come to you. 3In this form is the error still obscured that is the source of fear. 4Salvation would wipe out the space you see between you still, and let you instantly become as one. 5And it is here you fear the loss would lie. 6Do not project this fear to time, for time is not the enemy that you perceive. 7Time is as neutral as the body is, except in terms of what you see it for. 8If you would keep a little space between you and your brother still, you then would want a little time in which forgiveness is withheld a little while. 9And this but makes the interval between the time in which forgiveness is withheld from you and given seem dangerous, with terror justified.
4. Yet space between you and your brother is apparent only in the present, now, and cannot be perceived in future time. 2No more can it be overlooked except within the present. 3Future loss is not your fear. 4But present joining is your dread. 5Who can feel desolation except now? 6A future cause as yet has no effects. 7And therefore must it be that if you fear, there is a present cause. 8And it is this that needs correction, not a future state.
5. The plans you make for safety all are laid within the future, where you cannot plan. 2No purpose has been given it as yet, and what will happen has as yet no cause. 3Who can predict effects without a cause? 4And who could fear effects unless he thought they had been caused, and judged disastrous now? 5Belief in sin arouses fear, and like its cause, is looking forward, looking back, but overlooking what is here and now. 6Yet only here and now its cause must be, if its effects already have been judged as fearful. 7And in overlooking this, is it protected and kept separate from healing. 8For a miracle is now. 9It stands already here, in present grace, within the only interval of time that sin and fear have overlooked, but which is all there is to time.
6. The working out of all correction takes no time at all. 2Yet the acceptance of the working out can seem to take forever. 3The change of purpose the Holy Spirit brought to your relationship has in it all effects that you will see. 4They can be looked at now. 5Why wait till they unfold in time and fear they may not come, although already there? 6You have been told that everything brings good that comes from God. 7And yet it seems as if this is not so. 8Good in disaster’s form is difficult to credit in advance. 9Nor is there really sense in this idea.
7. Why should the good appear in evil’s form? 2And is it not deception if it does? 3Its cause is here, if it appears at all. 4Why are not its effects apparent, then? 5Why in the future? 6And you seek to be content with sighing, and with “reasoning” you do not understand it now, but will some day. 7And then its meaning will be clear. 8This is not reason, for it is unjust, and clearly hints at punishment until the time of liberation is at hand. 9Given a change of purpose for the good, there is no reason for an interval in which disaster strikes, to be perceived as “good” some day but now in form of pain. 10This is a sacrifice of now, which could not be the cost the Holy Spirit asks for what He gave without a cost at all.
8. Yet this illusion has a cause which, though untrue, must be already in your mind. 2And this illusion is but one effect that it engenders, and one form in which its outcome is perceived. 3This interval in time, when retribution is perceived to be the form in which the “good” appears, is but one aspect of the little space that lies between you, unforgiven still.
9. Be not content with future happiness. 2It has no meaning, and is not your just reward. 3For you have cause for freedom now. 4What profits freedom in a prisoner’s form? 5Why should deliverance be disguised as death? 6Delay is senseless, and the “reasoning” that would maintain effects of present cause must be delayed until a future time, is merely a denial of the fact that consequence and cause must come as one. 7Look not to time, but to the little space between you still, to be delivered from. 8And do not let it be disguised as time, and so preserved because its form is changed and what it is cannot be recognized. 9The Holy Spirit’s purpose now is yours. 10Should not His happiness be yours as well?