The Testament Of Judah
1926 anthology, complete selected publisher reading text
Rutherford H. Platt
24 Observe, therefore, my children, the right limit in wine; for there are in it four evil spirits--of lust, of hot desire, of profligacy, of filthy lucre.
25 If ye drink wine in gladness, be ye modest in the fear of God.
26 For if in your gladness the fear of God departeth, then drunkenness ariseth and shamelessness stealeth in.
27 But if ye would live soberly do not touch wine at all, lest ye sin in words of outrage, and in fightings and slanders, and transgressions of the commandments of God, and ye perish before your time.
28 Moreover, wine revealeth the mysteries of God and men, even as I also revealed the commandments of God and the mysteries of Jacob my father to the Canaanitish woman Bathshua, which God bade me not to reveal.
29 And wine is a cause both of war and confusion.
30 And now, I command you, my children, not to love money, nor to gaze upon the beauty of women; because for the sake of money and beauty I was led astray to Bathshua the Canaanite.
31 For I know that because of these two things shall my race fall into wickedness.
32 For even wise men among my sons shall they mar, and shall cause the kingdom of Judah to be diminished, which the Lord gave me because of my obedience to my father.
33 For I never caused grief to Jacob, my father; for all things whatsoever he commanded I did.
34 And Isaac, the father of my father, blessed me to be king in Israel, and Jacob further blessed me in like manner.
35 And I know that from me shall the kingdom be established.
36 And I know what evils ye will do in the last days.
37 Beware, therefore, my children, of fornication, and the love of money, and hearken to Judah your father.
38 For these things withdraw au from the law of God, and blind the inclination of the soul, and teach arrogance, and suffer not a man to have compassion upon his neighbour.
39 They rob his soul of all goodness, and oppress him with toils and troubles, and drive away sleep from him, and devour his flesh.
40 And he hindereth the sacrifices of God; and he remembereth not the blessing of God, he hearkeneth not to a prophet when he speaketh, and resenteth the words of godliness.
41 For he is a slave to two contrary passions, and cannot obey God, because they have blinded his soul, and he walketh in the day as in the night.
42 My children, the love of money leadeth to idolatry; because, when led astray through money, men name as gods those who are not gods, and it causeth him who hath it to fall into madness.
43 For the sake of money I lost my children, and had not my repentance, and my humiliation, and the prayers of my father been accepted, I should have died childless.
44 But the God of my fathers had mercy on me, because I did it in ignorance.
45 And the prince of deceit blinded me, and I sinned as a man and as flesh, being corrupted through sins; and I learnt my own weakness while thinking myself invincible.
46 Know, therefore, my children, that two spirits wait upon man-the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.
47 And in the midst is the spirit of understanding of the mind, to which it belongeth to turn whithersoever it will.
And the works of truth and the works of deceit are written upon the hearts of men, and each one of them the Lord knoweth.
49 And there is no time at which the works of men can be hid; for on the heart itself have they been written down before the Lord.
50 And the spirit of truth testifieth all things, and accuseth all; and the sinner is burnt up by his own heart, and cannot raise his face to the judge.
CHAP. IV.
Judah makes a vivid simile concerning tyranny and a dire prophecy concerning the morals of his listeners.
AND now, my children, I command you, love Levi, that ye may abide, and exalt not yourselves against him, lest ye be utterly destroyed.
2 For to me the Lord gave the kingdom, and to him the priesthood, and He set the kingdom beneath the priesthood.
3 To me He gave the things upon the earth; to him the things in the heavens.
4 As the heaven is higher than the earth, so is the priesthood of God higher than the earthly kingdom, unless it falls away through sin from the Lord and is dominated by the earthly kingdom.
5 For the angel of the Lord said unto me: The Lord chose him rather than thee, to draw near to Him, and to eat of His table and to offer Him the first-fruits of the choice things of the sons of Israel; but thou shalt be king of Jacob.
6 And thou shalt be amongst them as the sea.
7 For as, on the sea, just and unjust are tossed about, some taken into captivity while some are enriched, so also shall every race of men be in thee: some shall be impoverished, being taken captive, and others grow rich by plundering the possessions of others.
8 For the kings shall be as sea-monsters.
9 They shall swallow men like fishes: the sons and daughters of freemen shall they enslave; houses, lands, flocks, money shall they plunder:
10 And with the flesh of many shall they wrongfully feed the ravens and the cranes; and they shall advance in evil in covetousness uplifted, and there shall be false prophets like tempest, and they shall persecute all righteous men.
11 And the Lord shall bring upon them divisions one against another.