YOSĔPH 3 (Joseph 3)

1 How often the Mitsrite woman threatened me with death! How often, after turning me over to the tormentors she would call me back and threaten me! But since I was unwilling to have intercourse with her, she kept saying to me,

2 You will be master over me and all my household if you will only give yourself over to me; then you will be our ruler.

3 But I recalled my father’s words, went weeping into my quarters, and prayed to 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄.

4 For those seven years I fasted, and yet seemed to the Mitsrites like someone who was living luxuriously, for those who fast for the sake of Elohim receive graciousness of countenance.

5 If my master was absent, I drank no wine; for three-day periods I would take no food but give it to the poor and the ill.

6 I would awaken early and pray to 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄, weeping over the Mitsrite woman of Memphis because she troubled me exceedingly and relentlessly.

7 In the night she would come in to me, pretending a mere visit. Because she had no male child, she pretended to regard me as a son.

8 For a time she would embrace me as a son, but then I realized later that she was trying to lure me into fornication.

9 When I became aware of this I lamented to the point of death. After she had gone out, I came to myself and mourned on her behalf for many days, because I had recognized her deceit and her deviousness.

10 I declared to her the words of the Most High, hoping he might divert her from evil desire.