The moral teachings of the sect have been frequently touched upon above in speaking of their rules of life. Man is led into sin not only by the snares of Belial, but by his own sinful inclination and adulterous eyes (2 16; seemingly the _yeṣer hara’_ of the rabbis). It was through these that the Watchers fell; by them the generation of the flood sinned, and the sons of Jacob, and their descendants in Egypt and in Canaan, and brought judgment upon themselves (2 14 ff.). We have seen that the sect insisted upon monogamy, and perhaps rejected divorce altogether. Particular emphasis is laid in several places on the commandments, “thou shalt not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people,” “thou shalt reprove thy neighbor and not bear sin because of him” (Lev. 19 17, 18).(71) Thus, at the beginning of the legal part of the book, the delivery of a fellow Israelite to the gentiles so that he is condemned by their law is said to fall under this prohibition, and further, “any man of those who enter into the covenant who brings up against his neighbor a matter not in the nature of a reproof before witnesses, but which he brings up in anger, or tells it to his elders to bring the man into disrepute, he is one that takes vengeance and bears a grudge.” It is forbidden also to exact of another an oath except in the presence of the judges; he who does so transgresses the law which forbids a man to take justice into his own hands. Every one who enters into the covenant pledges himself not only not to rob the poor and make widows his spoil, but to love his neighbor as himself, to seek the welfare of his fellow, and to sustain the poor and needy. As regards the relations of the members of the sect to gentiles, it is forbidden to shed the blood of a gentile or to take aught of their property, “in order to give them no occasion to blaspheme” (12 6 f.), that is, to prevent the profaning of God’s name (15 3), a motive frequently urged in similar connection in the rabbinical writings. On the other hand, no man may sell to gentiles clean animals or birds, lest they offer them in sacrifice, nor grain, nor wine—naught of his possessions; nor shall he sell to them his slave or maid servant who have come with him into the covenant of Abraham (12 9 ff.), He may not pass the Sabbath in the neighborhood of gentiles. They are unclean, and garments they may have handled require purification. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐