Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Simeon · Chapter 7
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, my children, obey Levi and Judah, and be not lifted up against these two tribes, for from them shall arise unto you the salvation of God.
For the Lord shall raise up from Levi as it were a High-priest, and from Judah as it were a King, He shall save all [the Gentiles and] the race of Israel.
Therefore I give you these commands that ye also may command your children that they may observe them throughout their generations.