The sacred texts of the Zoroastrians, collected in the Avesta, include some written by Zoroaster himself as liturgical poems that priests were to recite during divine services. This poem, known in Zoroastrianism as Yasna 30, was addressed to believers and speaks about various aspects of Lord Ahuramazda that they should understand, such as Right and Good Thought, as they choose between good and evil.

Now I will speak, O proselytes, of what ye may bring to the attention even of one who knows,

praises for the Lord [Ahuramazda] and Good Thought’s acts of worship

well considered, and for Right; the gladness beheld by the daylight.

Hear with your ears the best message, behold with lucid mind

the two choices in the decision each man makes for his own person

before the great Supplication, as ye look ahead to the declaration to Him.

They are the two Wills, the twins who in the beginning made themselves heard through dreaming,

those two kinds of thought, of speech, of deed, the better and the evil;

and between them well-doers discriminate rightly, but ill-doers do not.

Once those two Wills join battle, a man adopts

life or non-life, the way of existence that will be his at the last:

that of the wrongful the worst kind, but for the righteous one, best thought.

Of these two Wills, the Wrongful one chooses to do the worst things,

but the most Bounteous Will (chooses) Right, he who clothes himself in adamant;

as do those also who committedly please the Lord with genuine actions, the Mindful One.

Between those two the very Daevas [the traditional gods of Iran] fail to discriminate rightly, because delusion

comes over them as they deliberate, when they choose worst thought;

they scurry together to the violence with which mortals blight the world.

But suppose one comes with dominion for Him, with good thought and right,

then vitality informs the body, piety the soul:

their ringleader Thou wilt have as if in irons:

and when the requital comes for their misdeeds,

for Thee, Mindful One [Ahuramazda], together with Good Thought, will be found dominion

to proclaim to those, Lord, who deliver Wrong into the hands of Right.

May we be the ones who will make this world splendid,

Mindful One and Ye Lords, bringers of change, and Right,

as our minds come together where insight is fluctuating.

For then destruction will come down upon Wrong’s prosperity,

and the swiftest (steeds) will be yoked from the fair dwelling of Good Thought,

of the Mindful One, and of Right, and they will be the winners in good repute.

When ye grasp those rules that the Mindful One lays down, O mortals,

through success and failure, and the lasting harm that is for the wrongful

as furtherance is for the righteous, then thereafter desire will be fulfilled.

Source: M. L. West, The Hymns of Zoroaster: A New Translation of the Most Ancient Sacred Texts of Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), pp. 51, 53, 55. Used by permission of I. B. Tauris.

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