3977. 'For you know my service with which I have served you' means toil and endeavour from His own power. This becomes clear from what has been stated and referred to just above in 3975, and so without any further explanation. But what else these words embody is evident from what has been stated above in 3974 as well as from what follows below.

533. Since nothing further is mentioned about Lamech apart from the fact that be beget sons and daughters, who are the conceptions and births of such a Church, there is no need to pause any longer over him. What these births, or sons and daughters, were, becomes clear from the Church, for the character of a Church determines that of its offspring. Both those Churches called Methuselah and Lamech breathed their last just before the flood.