Go quickly to the High Priest and give it to him, and
see what he will give you!" At the same hour there came an angel to
the High Priest, and said to him, "Within a few moments there will
come to you a man bringing the gem which three years ago was lost out
of the breastplate of Aaron the priest. Receive it at his hands, and
give him for it a great sum of gold; and when you have given it,
smite him lightly upon the cheek and say, 'Be not distrustful in thy
heart, and slow to believe the word which says, 'He that hath pity
upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord.' For thus saith the Lord,
'Have I not now in this present world repaid thee many times over that
which thou didst lend to Me? And, if thou have faith, thou shalt in
the world to come receive a recompense yet many times greater than
this.'" And when the man came, the High Priest did and said as he had
been commanded; and the man's heart was moved, and he left in the
temple all that great sum which had been given him, and for the rest
of his life put his whole trust in the promises of God.
The other short story is taken out of an apocryphal book under the
name of the prophet Ezekiel, and is a parable of the soul and the
body of man at the day of judgment.
There was a certain king, it says, who made a marriage feast for his
eldest son, and invited all his soldiers to his palace to share it.
Now every one of his subjects was a soldier and served in his army,
except only two, one of whom was blind and the other lame; and these
two were not invited to the feast, but remained in their huts--which
were near to one another--very angry and disappointed. After a while
the blind man called to the lame man, "It is a shame that we are not
sitting down to the feast along with the rest! I should like to treat
the king as ill as he has treated us." "How can we?" said the lame
man. "You know his garden," said the other; "let us go and spoil it!"
"All very well," said the lame man, "but how are we to get there?
I cannot walk." "Neither can I see; but we will contrive a way." So
they devised a plan. The lame man plucked the grass that he could
reach, and plaited it into a string, and threw one end to the blind
man, who guided himself by it to the lame man. Then he took the lame
man on his back, and carried him to the king's garden, and there they
did all the mischief they could, trampling down and tearing up plants
and flowers; and they went back to their houses and remained there.
When the rest of the people came out from the banquet into the
garden, they were appalled at the sight of the damage, and were much
perplexed, saying, "Were not all the soldiers of the king bidden to
the feast? and is not every man in the kingdom a soldier? Whence
then are these tracks in the garden, and who has wrought this
mischief?" After a while the king bethought him of the blind and the
lame man; they were brought before him, and he said to the blind man,
"Have you been into my garden?" He answered, "Alas, sire! you see my
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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