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guilty of the disrespectful behavior. Rebuked by Solomon, the demon said : " I pray thee, O king, it was not because of thee I laughed, but because of this ill-starred old man and the wretched youth, his son. For after three days his son will die untimely, and, lo, the old man desires to make away with him foully." Solomon delayed his verdict for several days, and when after five days he summoned the old father to his presence, it appeared that Ornias had spoken the truth.
After some time, Solomon received a letter from Adares, the king of Arabia. He begged the Jewish king to deliver his land from an evil spirit, who was doing great mischief, and who could not be caught and made harmless, because he appeared in the form of wind. Solomon gave his magic ring and a leather bottle to one of his slaves, and sent him into Arabia. The messenger succeeded in confining the spirit in the bottle. A few days later, when Solomon en- tered the Temple, he was not a little astonished to see a bottle walk toward him, and bow down reverently before him ; it was the bottle in which the spirit was shut up. This same spirit once did Solomon a great service. Assisted by demons, he raised a gigantic stone out of the Red Sea. Neither human beings nor demons could move it, but he carried it to the Temple, where it was used as a corner- stone.
Through his own fault Solomon forfeited the power to perform miraculous deeds, which the Divine spirit had conferred upon him. He fell in love with the. Jebusite woman Sonmanites. The priests of Moloch and Raphan, the false gods she worshipped, advised her to reject his
