JUBILEES 35
Rebecca commanded Yacob regarding his father Yitschaq
1 And in the first year of the first week of the forty-fifth jubilee [2157 A.M.] Rebecca called Yacob, her son, and commanded him regarding his father and regarding his brother, that he should honor them all the days of his life.
2 And Yacob said: 'I will do everything as you have commanded me; for this thing will be honor and greatness to me, and righteousness before YAHWEH, that I should honor them.
3 And you too, mother, know from the time I was born until this day, all my deeds and all that is in my heart, that I always think good concerning all.
4 And how should I not do this thing which you have commanded me, that I should honor my father and my brother!
5 Tell me, mother, what perversity have you seen in me and I shall turn away from it, and mercy will be upon me.'
6 And she said to him: 'My son, I have not seen in you all my days any perverse but (only) upright deeds. And yet I will tell you the truth, my son: I shall die this year, and I shall not survive this year in my life; for I have seen in a dream the day of my death, that I should not live beyond a hundred and fifty- five years: and behold I have completed all the days of my life which I am to live.'
7 And Yacob laughed at the words of his mother, because his mother had said to him that she should die; and she was sitting opposite to him in possession of her strength, and she was not infirm in her strength; for she went in and out and saw, and her teeth were strong, and no ailment had touched her all the days of her life.
8 And Yacob said to her: 'Blessed am I, mother, if my days approach the days of your life, and my strength remain with me thus as your strength: and you will not die, for you are jesting idly with me regarding your death.'
9 And she went in to Yitschaq and said to him: 'One petition I make unto you: make Esau swear that he will not injure Yacob, nor pursue him with enmity; for you know Esau's thoughts that they are perverse from his youth, and there is no goodness in him; for he desires after your death to kill him.
10 And you know all that he has done since the day Yacob his brother went to Haran until this day: how he has forsaken us with his whole heart, and has done evil to us; your flocks he has taken to himself, and carried off all your possessions from before your face.
11 And when we implored and besought him for what was our own, he did as a man who was taking pity on us.
12 And he is bitter against you because you did bless Yacob your perfect and upright son; for there is no evil but only goodness in him, and since he came from Haran unto this day he has not robbed us of aught, for he brings us everything in its season always, and rejoices with all his heart when we take at his hands and he blesses us, and has not departed from us since he came from Haran until this day, and he remains with us continually at home honoring us.'
13 And Yitschaq said to her: 'I, too, know and see the deeds of Yacob who is with us, how that with all his heart he honors us; but I loved Esau formerly more than Yacob, because he was the firstborn; but now I love Yacob more than Esau, for he has done manifold evil deeds, and there is no righteousness in him, for all his ways are unrighteousness and violence, and there is no righteousness around him.
14 And now my heart is troubled because of all his deeds, and neither he nor his seed is to be saved, for they are those who will be destroyed from the earth and who will be rooted out from under heaven, for he has forsaken YAHWEH the ALMIGHTY of Abraham and gone after his wives and after their uncleanness and after their error, he and his children.
15 And you do bid me make him swear that he will not slay Yacob his brother; even if he swear he will not abide by his oath, and he will not do good but evil only.
16 But if he desires to slay Yacob, his brother, into Yacob's hands will he be given, and he will not escape from his hands, for he will descend into his hands.
17 And fear you not on account of Yacob; for the guardian of Yacob is great and powerful and honored, and praised more than the guardian of Esau.'
18 And Rebecca sent and called Esau and he came to her, and she said to him: 'I have a petition, my son, to make to you, and do you promise to do it, my son.'
19 And he said: 'I will do everything that you say to me, and I will not refuse your petition.'
20 And she said to him: 'I ask you that the day I die, you will take me in and bury me near Sarah, your father's mother, and that you and Yacob will love each other and that neither will desire evil against the other, but mutual love only, and (so) you will prosper, my sons, and be honored in the midst of the land, and no enemy will rejoice over you, and you will be a blessing and a mercy in the eyes of all those that love you.'
21 And he said: 'I will do all that you have told me, and I shall bury you on the day you die near Sarah, my father's mother, as you have desired that her bones may be near your bones.
22 And Yacob, my brother, also, I shall love above all flesh; for I have not a brother in all the earth but him only: and this is no great merit for me if I love him; for he is my brother, and we were sown together in your body, and together came we forth from your womb, and if I do not love my brother, whom shall I love?
23 And I, myself, beg you to exhort Yacob concerning me and concerning my sons, for I know that he will assuredly be king over me and my sons, for on the day my father blessed him he made him the higher and me the lower.
24 And I swear unto you that I shall love him, and not desire evil against him all the days of my life but good only.'
25 And he swore unto her regarding all this matter. And she called Yacob before the eyes of Esau, and gave him commandment according to the words which she had spoken to Esau.
26 And he said: 'I shall do your pleasure; believe me that no evil will proceed from me or from my sons against Esau, and I shall be first in naught save in love only.'
27 And they eat and drank, she and her sons that night, and she died, three jubilees and one week and one year old, on that night, and her two sons, Esau and Yacob, buried her in the double cave near Sarah, their father's mother.
JUBILEES 36
Yitschaq called his two sons to instruct before he dies
1 And in the sixth year of this week [2162 A.M.] Yitschaq called his two sons Esau and Yacob, and they came to him, and he said to them: 'My sons, I am going the way of my fathers, to the eternal house where my fathers are.
2 Wherefore bury me near Abraham my father, in the double cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, where Abraham purchased a sepulcher to bury in; in the sepulcher which I digged for myself, there bury me.
3 And this I command you, my sons, that you practice righteousness and uprightness on the earth, so that YAHWEH may bring upon you all that YAHWEH said that he would do to Abraham and to his seed.
4 And love one another, my sons, your brothers as a man who loves his own soul, and let each seek in what he may benefit his brother, and act together on the earth; and let them love each other as their own souls. And concerning the question of idols, I command and admonish you to reject them and hate them, and love them not, for they are full of deception for those that worship them and for those that bow down to them.
6 Remember you, my sons, YAHWEH ALMIGHTY of Abraham your father, and how I too worshipped Him and served Him in righteousness and in joy, that He might multiply you and increase your seed as the stars of heaven in multitude, and establish you on the earth as the plant of righteousness which will not be rooted out unto all the generations forever.
7 And now I shall make you swear a great oath -for there is no oath which is greater than it by the NAME magnificent and honored and great and splendid and wonderful and mighty, which created the heavens and the earth and all things together- that you will fear Him and worship Him.
8 And that each will love his brother with affection and righteousness, and that neither will desire evil against his brother from henceforth forever all the days of your life so that you may prosper in all your deeds and not be destroyed.
9 And if either of you devises evil against his brother, know that from henceforth everyone that devises evil against his brother shall fall into his hand, and shall be rooted out of the land of the living, and his seed shall be destroyed from under heaven.
10 But on the day of turbulence and execration and indignation and anger, with flaming devouring fire as He burnt Sodom, so likewise will He burn his land and his city and all that is his, and he shall be blotted out of the book of the discipline of the children of men, and not be recorded in the book of life, but in that which is appointed to destruction, and he shall depart into eternal execration; so that their condemnation may be always renewed in hate and in execration and in wrath and in torment and in indignation and in plagues and in disease forever. I say and testify to you, my sons, according to the judgment which shall come upon the man who wishes to injure his brother.
12 And he divided all his possessions between the two on that day and he gave the larger portion to him that was the first-born, and the tower and all that was about it, and all that Abraham possessed at the Well of the Oath.
13 And he said: 'This larger portion I will give to the firstborn.'
14 And Esau said, 'I have sold to Yacob and given my birthright to Yacob; to him let it be given, and I have not a single word to say regarding it, for it is his.'
15 And Yitschaq said, May a blessing rest upon you, my sons, and upon your seed this day, for you have given me rest, and my heart is not pained concerning the birthright, lest you should work wickedness on account of it.
16 May the Most High YAHWEH bless the man that works righteousness, him and his seed forever.'
17 And he ended commanding them and blessing them, and they eat and drank together before him, and he rejoiced because there was one mind between them, and they went forth from him and rested that day and slept.
18 And Yitschaq slept on his bed that day rejoicing; and he slept the eternal sleep, and died one hundred and eighty years old. He completed twenty-five weeks and five years; and his two sons Esau and Yacob buried him.
19 And Esau went to the land of Edom, to the mountains of Seir, and dwelt there.
20 And Yacob dwelt in the mountains of Hebron, in the tower of the land of the sojournings of his father Abraham, and he worshipped YAHWEH with all his heart and according to the visible commands according as He had divided the days of his generations.
21 And Leah his wife died in the fourth year of the second week of the forty- fifth jubilee, [2167 A.M.] and he buried her in the double cave near Rebecca his mother to the left of the grave of Sarah, his father's mother.
22 And all her sons and his sons came to mourn over Leah his wife with him and to comfort him regarding her, for he was lamenting her for he loved her exceedingly after Rachel her sister died;
23 For she was perfect and upright in all her ways and honored Yacob, and all the days that she lived with him he did not hear from her mouth a harsh word, for she was gentle and peaceable and upright and honorable.
24 And he remembered all her deeds which she had done during her life and he lamented her exceedingly; for he loved her with all his heart and with all his soul.
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