Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs 2
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The copy of the words of Simeon, the things which he spake to his sons before he died in the hundred and twentieth year of his life.
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Simeon said: I was born of Jacob as my father's second son, and my mother Leah called me Simeon because the Lord had heard her prayer.
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Moreover I became strong exceedingly; I shrank from no achievement, nor was I afraid of anything. For my heart was hard and my liver was unmovable and my bowels without compassion.
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Because valour also has been given from the Most High to men in soul and body. For in the time of my youth I was jealous, in many things, of Joseph.
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Because my father loved him beyond all. And I set my mind against him to destroy him, because the prince of deceit sent forth the spirit of jealousy and blinded my mind.
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Now, my children, hearken unto me: flee the malice of envy, for envy ruleth over the whole mind and suffereth man neither to eat nor to drink nor to do any good thing.
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But it ever suggesteth to him to destroy the thing that he envieth. And as long as he that is envied flourisheth, the envious man fadeth away.
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Two years therefore I afflicted my soul with fasting in the fear of the Lord, and I learnt that deliverance from envy comes through the fear of God.
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If a man flee to the Lord, the evil spirit runneth away from him and his mind is lightened. And henceforward he sympathiseth with the envied and forgiveth those who are hostile to him, and so putteth away envy.
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