Aramaic Levi Document

The Aramaic Levi Document

[Reconstructed from Aramaic fragments and related witnesses; gaps remain.]

[Then I, Levi,] washed myself in running water and set all my ways straight, and I lifted my eyes and my face to heaven, and I prayed:

O Lord, you know all hearts;

you alone understand all the thoughts of mind.

Keep far from me the unrighteous spirit,

and evil thought and fornication.

Let your holy spirit be shown to me,

and grant me counsel and wisdom and knowledge and strength,

to do what is pleasing to you

and to find favor before you.

Make me a sharer in your words,

to do true judgment for all time,

for me and my sons after me.

And in a vision I saw the heavens opened, and I saw a high mountain, and upon it the holy ones; and they made me a priest of the Most High God, and they instructed me in the duty of the priesthood. [Text missing]

And Isaac my grandfather called me, when he learned that I had been made a priest, and he instructed me in the law of the priesthood: concerning the washing before the offering, the wood that may be brought to the altar, the salt, the measures of fine flour and oil and incense, and the order of the offering; and he charged me to keep myself from all uncleanness and from fornication, and to take a wife from my own kindred, that the seed of the priesthood should not be defiled. [Line damaged]

And I taught my sons writing and the instruction of wisdom, and I said to them: My children, love wisdom and seek her, for whoever learns wisdom, honor is with her; but the one who despises wisdom is given to scorn. See Joseph my brother, who taught writing and the instruction of wisdom — to what greatness he came, and how he was honored among kings. Wisdom is a treasure that does not fail, and a glory that does not pass away.

[Fragment breaks here]