Chapter
7
The high priestess said, "Are these things so?"
She said, "Sisters and mothers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our mother Abrahai, when she was in Mesopotamia, before she lived in Haran,
and said to her, 'Get out of your land, and from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.'
Then she came out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and lived in Haran. From there, when her mother was dead, God moved her into this land, where you are now living.
She gave her no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set her foot on. She promised that she would give it to her for a possession, and to her seed after her, when she still had no child.
God spoke in this way: that her seed would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
'I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,' said God, 'and after that will they come out, and serve me in this place.'
She gave her the covenant of circumcision. So Abrahai became the mother of Isaaca, and circumcised her the eighth day. Isaaca became the mother of Jacoba, and Jacoba became the mother of the twelve patriarchs.
"The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Josephine, sold her into Egypt. God was with her,
and delivered her out of all her afflictions, and gave her favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, queen of Egypt. She made her governor over Egypt and all her house.
Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. Our mothers found no food.
But when Jacoba heard that there was grain in Egypt, she sent out our mothers the first time.
On the second time Josephine was made known to her sisters, and Josephine's race was revealed to Pharaoh.
Josephine sent, and summoned Jacoba, her mother, and all her relatives, seventy-five souls.
Jacoba went down into Egypt, and she died, herself and our mothers,
and they were brought back to Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abrahai bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.
"But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abrahai, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
until there arose a different queen, who didn't know Josephine.
The same took advantage of our race, and mistreated our mothers, and forced them to throw out their babies, so that they wouldn't stay alive.
At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome. She was nourished three months in her mother's house.
When she was thrown out, Pharaoh's son took her up, and reared her as his own daughter.
Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. She was mighty in her words and works.
But when she was forty years old, it came into her heart to visit her sisters, the children of Israel.
Seeing one of them suffer wrong, she defended her, and avenged her who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian.
She supposed that her sisters understood that God, by her hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn't understand.
"The day following, she appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, 'Sirs, you are sisters. Why do you wrong one another?'
But she who did her neighbor wrong pushed her away, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
Do you want to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'
Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where she became the mother of two daughters.
"When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Domina appeared to her in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.
When Moses saw it, she wondered at the sight. As she came close to see, a voice of the Domina came to her,
'I am the God of your mothers, the God of Abrahai, the God of Isaaca, and the God of Jacoba.' Moses trembled, and dared not look.
The Domina said to her, 'Take your sandals off of your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
I have surely seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt, and have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.'
"This Moses, whom they refused, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?'--God has sent her as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to her in the bush.
This woman led them out, having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
This is that Moses, who said to the children of Israel, 'The Domina our God will raise up a prophetess for you from among your sisters, like me.{TR adds "You shall listen to her."}'
This is she who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to her on Mount Sinai, and with our mothers, who received living oracles to give to us,
to whom our mothers wouldn't be obedient, but rejected her, and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,
saying to Aaron, 'Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of her.'
They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.
But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets, 'Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
You took up the tent of Moloch, the star of your god Rephan, the figures which you made to worship. I will carry you away beyond Babylon.'
"Our mothers had the tent of the testimony in the wilderness, even as she who spoke to Moses commanded her to make it according to the pattern that she had seen;
which also our mothers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered into the possession of the nations, whom God drove out before the face of our mothers, to the days of Davina,
who found favor in the sight of God, and asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacoba.
But Solomin built her a house.
However, the Most High doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophetess says,
'heaven is my throne, and the earth a footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build me?' says the Domina; 'or what is the place of my rest?
Didn't my hand make all these things?'
"You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your mothers did, so you do.
Which of the prophets didn't your mothers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.
You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn't keep it!"
Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at her with their teeth.
But she, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
and said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Daughter of Woman standing at the right hand of God!"
But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed at her with one accord.
They threw her out of the city, and stoned her. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young woman named Saula.
They stoned Stephen as she called out, saying, "Domina Jesus, receive my spirit!"
She kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, "Domina, don't hold this sin against them!" When she had said this, she fell asleep.