The Lost Books of the Bible: The Great Rejected Texts Read online

  15 So they told him, for Jacob was a more gracious and merciful man than Esau.

  16 But Jacob would not believe until they came very near to the tower.

  17 He closed the gates of the tower; and he stood on the battlements and spoke to his brother Esau and said, “Noble is the comfort you have come to give me concerning the death of my wife. Is this the oath that you swore to your father and again to your mother before they died? You have broken the oath, and on the moment that you swore to your father you were condemned.”

  18 Then Esau answered and said to him, “Neither the children of men nor the beasts of the earth have sworn an oath of righteousness and kept it forever. Every day they lay evil plans one against another regarding how they might kill their adversary or foe.

  19 You will hate my children and me forever, so there is no observing the tie of brotherhood with you.

  20 Hear these words that I declare to you. If the boar can change its skin and make its bristles as soft as wool, or if it can cause horns to sprout out on its head like the horns of a stag or of a sheep, then will I observe the tie of brotherhood with you. Like breasts separate themselves from their mother (and fight), you and I have never been brothers.

  21 If the wolves make peace with the lambs and not devour or do them violence, and if their hearts are towards them for good, then there shall be peace in my heart towards you. If the lion becomes the friend of the ox and makes peace with him and if he is bound under one yoke with him and plows with him, then will I make peace with you.

  22 When the raven becomes white as the raza (a white bird?), then know that I have loved you and shall make peace with you. You will be rooted out, and your sons shall be rooted out, and there shall be no peace for you.”

  23 Jacob saw that Esau had decided in his heart to do evil toward him, and that he desired with all his soul to kill him. Jacob saw that Esau had come pouncing like the wild boar which charges the spear that is set to pierce and kills it, and yet does not even slow down. Then he spoke to his own people and to his servants and told them that Esau and his men were going to attack him and all his companions.

  [Chapter 38]

  1 After that Judah spoke to Jacob, his father, and said to him, “Bend your bow, father, and send forth your arrows and bring down the adversary and kill the enemy. You have the power to do it. We will not kill your brother because he is your kin and he is like you, so we will honor his life.”

  2 Then Jacob bent his bow and sent forth the arrow and struck Esau, his brother, on the right side of his chest and killed him.

  3 And again he sent forth an arrow and struck Adoran the Aramaean, on the left side of his chest, and it drove him backward and killed him. Then the sons of Jacob and their servants went out, dividing themselves into companies on the four sides of the tower.

  4 Judah went out in front. Naphtali and Gad along with fifty servants went to the south side of the tower, and they killed all they found before them. Not one individual escaped.

  5 Levi, Dan, and Asher went out on the east side of the tower along with fifty men, and they killed the warriors of Moab and Ammon.

  6 Reuben, Issachar, and Zebulon went out on the north side of the tower along with fifty men and they killed the warriors of the Philistines.

  7 Reuben’s son, Simeon, Benjamin, and Enoch went out on the west side of the tower along with fifty men and they killed four hundred men, stout warriors of Edom and of the Horites. Six hundred fled, and four of the sons of Esau fled with them, and left their father lying killed, as he had fallen on the hill that is in Aduram.

  8 And the sons of Jacob pursued them to the mountains of Seir. And Jacob buried his brother on the hill that is in Aduram, and he returned to his house.

  9 The sons of Jacob crushed the sons of Esau in the mountains of Seir, and made them bow their necks so that they became servants of the sons of Jacob.

  10 They sent a message to their father to inquire whether they should make peace with them or kill them.

  11 Jacob sent word to his sons that they should make peace. They made peace with them but also placed the yoke of servitude on them, so that they paid tribute to Jacob and to his sons always.

  12 And they continued to pay tribute to Jacob until the day that he went down to Egypt.

  13 The sons of Edom have not escaped the yoke of servitude imposed by the twelve sons of Jacob until this day.

  14 These are the kings that reigned in Edom before there was any king over the children of Israel (until this day) in the land of Edom.

  15 And Balaq, the son of Beor, reigned in Edom, and the name of his city was Danaba. Balaq died, and Jobab, the son of Zara of Boser, ruled in his place.

  16 Jobab died, and Asam, of the land of Teman, ruled in his place.

  17 Asam died, and Adath, the son of Barad, who killed Midian in the field of Moab, ruled in his place, and the name of his city was Avith.

  18 Adath died, and Salman, from Amaseqa, ruled in his place.

  19 Salman died, and Saul of Ra’aboth by the river, ruled in his place. Saul died, and Ba’elunan, the son of Achbor, ruled in his place.

  20 Ba’elunan, the son of Achbor died, and Adath ruled in his place, and the name of his wife was Maitabith, the daughter of Matarat, the daughter of Metabedza’ab. These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom.

  [Chapter 39]

  1 Jacob lived in the land that his father journeyed in, which is the land of Canaan.

  2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph was seventeen years old when they took him down into the land of Egypt, and Potiphar, a eunuch of Pharaoh, the chief cook, bought him.

  3 He made Joseph the manager over Potiphar’s entire house and the blessing of the Lord came on the house of the Egyptian because of Joseph. And the Lord caused him to prosper in all that he did.

  4 The Egyptian turned everything over to the hands of Joseph because he saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused him to prosper him in all that he did.

  5 Joseph’s appearance was beautiful, and his master’s wife watched Joseph, and she loved him and wanted him to have sex with her.

  6 But he did not surrender his soul because he remembered the Lord and the words which Jacob, his father, used to read to him from the writings of Abraham, that no man should commit fornication with a woman who has a husband. For him the punishment of death has been ordained in the heavens before the Most High God, and the sin will be recorded against him in the eternal books, which are always in the presence of the Lord.

  7 Joseph remembered these words and refused to have sex with her.

  8 And she begged him for a year, but he refused and would not listen.

  9 But while he was in the house she embraced him and held him tightly in order to force him to sleep with her. She closed the doors of the house and held on to him, but he left his garment in her hands and broke through the door and ran out from her presence.

  10 The woman saw that he would not sleep with her, and she slandered him in the presence of his master, saying “Your Hebrew servant, whom you love, sought to force me to have sex with him. When I shouted for help he fled and left his garment in my hands. I tried to stop him but he broke through the door.”

  11 When the Egyptian saw Joseph’s garment and the broken door, and heard the words of his wife, he threw Joseph into prison and put him in the place where the prisoners of the king were kept.

  12 He was there in the prison, and the Lord gave Joseph favor in the sight of the chief of the prison guards and caused him to have compassion for Joseph, because he saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper.

  13 He turned over all things into his hands, and the chief of the prison guards knew of nothing that was going on in the prison, because Joseph did everything for him, and the Lord perfected it. He remained there two years.

  14 In those days Pharaoh, king of Egypt, was very angry at his two eunuchs, the chief butler, and the chief baker. He put them in the prison facility
of the house of the chief cook, where Joseph was kept.

  15 The chief of the prison guards appointed Joseph to serve them, and he served them.

  16 They both dreamed a dream, the chief butler and the chief baker, and they told it to Joseph.

  17 As he interpreted to them so it happened to them, and Pharaoh restored the chief butler to his office and he killed the chief baker as Joseph had interpreted to them.

  18 But the chief butler forgot Joseph was in the prison, although he had informed him of what would happen to him. He did not remember to inform Pharaoh of how Joseph had told him (about his dream), because he forgot.

  [Chapter 40]

  1 In those days Pharaoh dreamed two dreams in one night concerning a famine that was to be in all the land, and he awoke from his sleep and called all the magicians and interpreters of dreams that were in Egypt. He told them his two dreams but they were not able to tell him what they meant.

  2 Then the chief butler remembered Joseph and told the king of him, and he brought him out from the prison, and the king told his two dreams to him.

  3 He said before Pharaoh that his two dreams were one, and he said to him, “Seven years shall come in which there shall be plenty in all the land of Egypt, but after that, seven years of famine. Such a famine as has not been in all the land.

  4 Now, let Pharaoh appoint administrators in all the land of Egypt, and let them store up food in every city throughout all the years of plenty, and there will be food for the seven years of famine, and those of the land will not perish through the famine, even though it will be very severe.”

  5 The Lord gave Joseph favor and mercy in the eyes of Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to his servants, “We shall not find such a wise and prudent man like this man, because the spirit of the Lord is with him.”

  6 And he appointed Joseph the second in command in his entire kingdom and gave him authority over all Egypt, and placed him on the second chariot of Pharaoh to ride.

  7 And he clothed him with fine linen clothes, and he put a gold chain around his neck, and a crier proclaimed before him “El“ “El wa Abirer,” and he placed a ring on his hand and made him ruler over all his house, and lifted him up before the people, and said to him, “Only on the throne shall I be greater than you.”

  8 Joseph ruled over all the land of Egypt, and all the governors of Pharaoh, and all his servants, and all those who did the king’s business loved him because he walked in uprightness, because he was without pride and arrogance. He did not judge people by their position, and did not accept gifts, but he judged all the people of the land in uprightness.

  9 The land of Egypt was at peace before Pharaoh because of Joseph, because the Lord was with him, and the Lord gave him favor and mercy for all his generations before all those who knew him and those who heard of him, and Pharaoh’s kingdom was run efficiently, and there was no Satan (adversary) and no evil person in it.

  10 And the king called Joseph’s name Sephantiphans, and gave Joseph the daughter of Potiphar, the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, the chief cook to marry.

  11 On the day that Joseph stood before Pharaoh he was thirty years old.

  12 In that year Isaac died. Things transpired as Joseph had said in the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream and there were seven years of plenty over all the land of Egypt, and the land of Egypt abundantly produced, one measure producing eighteen hundred measures.

  13 Joseph gathered food into every city until they were full of grain and they could no longer count or measure it because of its multitude.

  [Chapter 41]

  1 In the forty-fifth jubilee, in the second week, and in the second year, Judah took his first-born Er, a wife from the daughters of Aram, named Tamar.

  2 But he hated her, and did not have sex with her, because her mother was of the daughters of Canaan, and he wished to take him a wife of the lineage of his mother, but Judah, his father, would not permit him to do that.

  3 Er, the first-born of Judah, was wicked, and the Lord killed him.

  4 And Judah said to Onan, his brother, “Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and raise up offspring to your brother.”

  5 Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, but his brother’s only, and he went into the house of his brother’s wife, and spilt his seed (ejaculates) on the ground, and he was wicked in the eyes of the Lord, and He killed him.

  6 Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Remain in your father’s house as a widow until Shelah, my son has grown up, and I shall give you to him to wife.”

  7 He grew up, but Bedsu’el, the wife of Judah, did not permit her son Shelah to marry. Bedsu’el, Judah’s wife, died in the fifth year of this week.

  8 In the sixth year Judah went up to shear his sheep at Timnah.

  9 And they told Tamar, “Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” And she took off her widow’s clothes, and put on a veil, and adorned herself, and sat in the gate connecting the road to Timnah.

  10 As Judah was going along he saw her, and thought she was a prostitute, and he said to her, “Let me come in to you,” and she said to him, “Come in,” and he went in.

  11 She said to him, “Give me my pay,” and he said to her, “I have nothing with me except my ring that is on my finger, my necklace, and my staff which is in my hand.”

  12 She said to him, “Give them to me until you send me my pay.” And he said to her, “I will send to you a kid of the goats”, and he gave her his ring, necklace, and staff, and she conceived by him.

  13 Judah went to his sheep, and she went to her father’s house.

  14 Judah sent a kid of the goats by the hand of his shepherd, an Adullamite, but he could not find her, so he asked the people of the place, saying, “Where is the prostitute who was here?”

  15 They said to him, “There is no prostitute here with us.” And he returned and informed Judah that he had not found her, “I asked the people of the place, and they said to me, "There is no prostitute here." “

  16 He said, “If you see her give the kids to her or we become a cause of ridicule.” And when she had completed three months, it was revealed that she was with child, and they told Judah, saying, “Look Tamar, your daughter-in-law, is with child by whoredom.”

  17 And Judah went to the house of her father, and said to her father and her brothers, “Bring her out, and let them burn her, for she has committed uncleanness in Israel.”

  18 It happened when they brought her out to burn her that she sent to her father-in-law the ring and the necklace, and the staff, saying, “Tell us whose are these, because by him am I with child.”

  19 Judah acknowledged, and said, “Tamar is more righteous than I am.

  20 Do not let them burn her.” And for that reason she was not given to Shelah, and he did not again approach her and after that she gave birth to two sons, Perez and Zerah, in the seventh year of this second week.

  21 At this time the seven years of fruitfulness were completed, of which Joseph spoke to Pharaoh.

  22 Judah acknowledged the evil deed that he had done because he had sex with his daughter-in-law, and he hated himself for it.

  23 He acknowledged that he had transgressed and gone astray, because he had uncovered the skirt of his son, and he began to lament and to supplicate before the Lord because of his transgression.

  24 We told him in a dream that it was forgiven him because he supplicated earnestly, and lamented, and did not commit the act again.

  25 And he received forgiveness because he turned from his sin and from his ignorance, because he transgressed greatly before our God. Every one that acts like this, every one who has sex with his mother-in-law, let them burn him alive with fire. Because there is uncleanness and pollution on them, let them burn them alive.

  26 Command the children of Israel that there should be no uncleanness among them, because every one who has sex with his daughter-in-law or with his mother-in-law has committed

&nbs
p; uncleanness. Let them burn the man who has had sex with her with fire, and likewise burn the woman, so that God will turn away wrath and punishment from Israel.

  27 We told Judah that his two sons had not had sex with her, and for this reason his offspring was established for a second generation, and would not be rooted out.

  28 For in single-mindedness he had gone and sought for punishment, namely, according to the judgment of Abraham, which he had commanded his sons. Judah had sought to burn her alive.

  [Chapter 42]

  1 In the first year of the third week of the forty-fifth jubilee the famine began to come into the land, and the rain refused to be given to the earth. None whatsoever fell.

  2 The earth became barren, but in the land of Egypt there was food, because Joseph had gathered the seed of the land in the seven years of plenty and had preserved it.

  3 The Egyptians came to Joseph that he might give them food, and he opened the storehouses where the grain of the first year was stored, and he sold it to the people of the land for gold.

  4 Jacob heard there was food in Egypt, and he sent his ten sons that they should procure food for him in Egypt, and they arrived among those that went there, but Benjamin he did not send.

  5 Joseph recognized them, but they did not recognize him. He spoke to them and questioned them, and he said to them, “Are you not spies and have you not come to explore ways to enter this land?”

  6 And he put them in custody.

  7 After that, he set them free again, and detained Simeon alone and sent his nine brothers away.