Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Simeon · Chapter 5
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.
Therefore was Joseph comely in appearance and goodly to look upon, because no wickedness dwelt in him;
for some of the trouble of the spirit the face manifesteth. And now, my children, Make your hearts good before the Lord, And your ways straight before men.
And ye shall find grace before the Lord and men. Beware, therefore, of fornication, For fornication is mother of all evils, Separating from God, and bringing near to Beliar.
For I have seen it inscribed in the writing of Enoch that your sons shall be corrupted in fornication, and shall do harm to the sons of Levi with the sword.
But they shall not be able to withstand Levi; for he shall wage the war of the Lord, and shall conquer all your hosts.
And they shall be few in number, divided in Levi and Judah, and there shall be none of you for sovereignty, even as also our father prophesied in his blessings.