Serve not the idols of Egypt; and let not the senses be thy taskmasters. For they will bow thy neck to their yoke; they will bitterly oppress the Israel of God. An evil time shall come upon thee; and the Lord shall smite Egypt with plagues for thy sake. Thy body shall be broken on the wheel of God; thy flesh shall see trouble and the worm. Thy house shall be smitten with grievous plagues; blood, and pestilence, and great darkness; fire shall devour thy goods; and thou shalt be a prey to the locust and creeping thing. Thy glory shall be brought down to the dust; hail and storm shall smite thine harvest; yea, thy beloved and thy first-born shall the hand of the Lord destroy; Until the body let the soul go free; that she may serve the Lord God. Arise in the night, O soul, and fly, lest thou be consumed in Egypt. The angel of the understanding shall know thee for his elect, if thou offer unto God a reasonable faith. Savour thy reason with learning, with labour, and with obedience. Let the rod of thy desire be in thy right hand: put the sandals of Hermes on thy feet; and gird thy loins with strength. Then shalt thou pass through the waters of cleansing, which is the first death in the body. The waters shall be a wall unto thee on thy right hand and on thy left. And Hermes the Redeemer shall go before thee; for he is thy cloud of darkness by day, and thy pillar of fire by night. All the horsemen of Egypt and the chariots thereof; her princes, her counsellors, and her mighty men: These shall pursue thee, O soul, that fliest; and shall seek to bring thee back into bondage. Fly for thy life; fear not the deep; stretch out thy rod over the sea; and lift thy desire unto God. Thou hast learnt wisdom in Egypt; thou has spoiled the Egyptians; thou hast carried away their fine gold and their precious things. Thou hast enriched thyself in the body; but the body shall not hold thee; neither shall the waters of the deep swallow thee up. Thou shalt wash thy robes in the sea of regeneration; the blood of atonement shall redeem thee to God. This is thy chrism and anointing, O soul; this is the first death; thou art the Israel of the Lord, Who hath redeemed thee from the dominion of the body; and hath called thee from the grave, and from the house of bondage, Unto the way of the cross, and to the path in the midst of the wilderness; Where are the adder and the serpent, the mirage and the burning sand. For the feet of the saint are set in the way of the desert. But be thou of good courage, and fail thou not; then shall thy raiment endure, and thy sandals shall not wax old upon thee.