Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Issachar · Chapter 4
About this work
A collection of farewell discourses attributed to the twelve sons of Jacob, combining ethical exhortation, autobiographical retelling, and eschatological material. The transmitted text preserves Jewish traditions alongside Christian material or interpolation, and its compositional history remains debated.
- Author
- Anonymous
- Date
- Second Temple Jewish material; transmitted form includes later Christian elements.
- Origin
- Unknown
- Genre
- Testamentary Literature / Pseudepigrapha
- Textual language
- Greek textual tradition; earlier sources and layers are debated.
- Translator
- R. H. Charles
- Translation / Edition
- R. H. Charles translation, first published 1908.
And now, hearken to me, my children, And walk in singleness of your heart, For I have seen in it all that is well-pleasing to the Lord.
The single-(minded) man coveteth not gold, He overreacheth not his neighbour, He longeth not after manifold dainties, He delighteth not in varied apparel.
He doth not desire to live a long life, But only waiteth for the will of God.
And the spirits of deceit have no power against him, For he looketh not on the beauty of women, Lest he should pollute his mind with corruption.
There is no envy in his thoughts, [No malicious person maketh his soul to pine away,] Nor worry with insatiable desire in his mind.
For he walketh in singleness of soul, And beholdeth all things in uprightness of heart, Shunning eyes (made) evil through the error of the world, Lest he should see the perversion of any of the commandments of the Lord.