Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
"Therefore I adjure you not to go astray and serve other gods beside
Him whom our fathers made choice of. You can perceive somewhat of His
power in the creation of man. From head to foot is man wonderfully
made. With his ears he hears, with his eyes he sees, with his brain he
comprehends, with his nose he smells, with the tubes of his throat he
utters sounds, with his gullet he swallows food, with his tongue he
articulates, with his mouth he forms words, with his hands he does his
work, with his heart he meditates, with his spleen he laughs, with his
liver he waxes angry, with his stomach he crushes his food, with his
feet he walks, with his lungs he breathes, and with his kidneys he
makes resolves, and none of his organs undergoes a change in function,
each performs its own. Therefore it behooves man to take to heart who
it is that hath created him, and who hath developed him from a
foul-smelling drop in the womb of woman, who hath brought him to the
light of the world, who hath given sight to his eyes, and who hath
bestowed the power of motion upon his feet, who maketh him to stand
upright, who hath infused the breath of life into him, and who hath
imparted of His own pure spirit unto him. Happy the man, therefore,
that polluteth not the holy spirit of God within him by doing evil
deeds, and well for him if he returns it to his Creator as he received
it."
After Naphtali had charged his children thus, and with many other
lessons like these, he enjoined them to carry his remains to Hebron, to
be buried there near his fathers. Then he ate and drank with rejoicing,
covered his face, and died, and his sons did according to all that
their father Naphtali had commanded them.[14]
GAD'S HATRED
In the hundred and twenty-fifth year of his life Gad assembled his
sons, and he spake to them: "I am the ninth son of Jacob, and I was a
valiant shepherd of the flocks. I guarded the herds, and when a lion or
any other wild beast approached, I pursued it, gripped it by the foot,
flung it a stone's throw from me, and killed it thus. Once, for a space
of thirty days, Joseph tended the flocks with us, and when he returned
to our father, he told him that the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah
slaughtered the best of the herds, and used the flesh without the
knowledge of Reuben and Judah. He had seen me snatch a lamb out of the
jaws of a bear, kill the bear, and slaughter the lamb, for it was too
badly injured to live. I was wroth with Joseph for his talebearing,
until he was sold into Egypt. I would neither look upon him nor hear
aught about him, for to our very faces he, blamed us, because we had
eaten the lamb without seeking the permission of Judah first. And
whatever Joseph told our father, he believed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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