this also I further beg of you, as being one of you, and loving you both individually and collectively more than my own soul, to take heed now to yourselves, and not to be like some, adding largely to your sins, and saying, "The covenant is both theirs and ours."[1] But they thus finally lost it, after Moses had already received it. For the Scripture saith, "And Moses was fasting in the mount forty days and forty nights, and received the covenant from the Lord, tables of stone written with the finger of the hand of the Lord;"[2] but turning away to idols, they lost it. For the Lord speaks thus to Moses: "Moses, go down quickly; for the people whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt have transgressed."[3] And Moses understood [the meaning of God], and cast the two tables out of his hands; and their covenant was broken, in order that the covenant of the beloved Jesus might be sealed upon our heart, in the hope which flows from believing in Him.[4] Now, being desirous to write many things to you, not as your teacher, but as becometh one who loves you, I have taken care not to fail to write to you from what I myself possess, with a view to your purification.[5] We take earnest[6] heed in these last days; for the whole [past] time of your faith will profit you nothing, unless now in this wicked time we also withstand coming sources of danger, as becometh the sons of God. That the Black One[7] may find no means of entrance, let us flee from every vanity, let us
- ↑ We here follow the Latin text in preference to the Greek, which reads merely, "the covenant is ours." What follows seems to show the correctness of the Latin, as the author proceeds to deny that the Jews had any further interest in the promises.
- ↑ Ex. xxxi. 18, xxxiv. 28.
- ↑ Ex. xxxii. 7; Deut. ix. 12.
- ↑ Literally, "in hope of His faith."
- ↑ The Greek is here incorrect and unintelligible; and as the Latin omits the clause, our translation is merely conjectural. Hilgenfeld's text, if we give a somewhat peculiar meaning to ἐλλιπεῖν may be translated: "but as it is becoming in one who loves you not to fail in giving you what we have, I, though the very offscouring of you, have been eager to write to you."
- ↑ So the Cod. Sin. Hilgenfeld reads, with the Latin, "let us take."
- ↑ The Latin here departs entirely from the Greek text, and quotes as a saying of "the Son of God" the following precept, nowhere to be found
