When I, Abraham, however, heard such words from my father, I laughed in my mind and sighed in the grief and in the anger of my soul, and said:11 “How then can that which is made by him—manufactured statues—be a helper of my father? Or shall the body then be subject to its soul, and the soul to the spirit, and the spirit to folly and ignorance!”12 And I said:11 “It is fitting once to endure evil. So I will direct my mind to what is pure and lay my thoughts open before him.” [And]13 I answered and said: “O father Terah, whichever of these thou praisest as a god, thou art foolish in thy mind. Behold the gods of thy brother Ora,14 which stand in the holy temple, are more worthy of honour than [these of]15 thine. For behold Zucheus, the god of thy brother Oron,16 is more worthy of honour than thy god

Lit. kindling of the fire. S omits. Lit. did my counsel: a Hebrew phrase, ‘~s ~ ‘‘s ~, “execute a plan” (Is. xxx. 1). S, + before. A; + And it came to pass when I saw it. A, mind; K, in my mind and laughed. Lit. became. Wine was sometimes mixed not only with water, b ut with milk, in Palestine; cf. Cant. V. 1 (I have drunk my wine with my milk): cf. also Is. lv. 1. S A omit. Lit. make. i.e. thought (“said in my heart”). The sentence that follows (“It is fitting once to endure evil”) means: “It is well to suffer in this way for a good cause.” In th is sentence the text o f S i s n ot in order, and has been corrected by Tikhonravov in accordance with A and K. Omitted by S. i.e. Haran (so S); A has thy father Nahor, K my brother Nahor. Omitted by S. Another form of Haran (so S); A and K read as indicated in the previous note.

Merumath, because he is made of gold which is highly valued by people, and when he groweth old in years he will be re-modelled; but if your god Merumath is changed or broken, he will not be renewed, because he is a stone; the which is also the case with the god Joavon 1 2 [ who standeth with Zucheus over the other gods—how 3 much more worthy of honour is he than t he god Barisat, who is made of wood, while he is forged of silver! How3 is he made, by adaptatio n o f man, v a lu ab l e t o o utward appearance! But thy god Barisat, while he was sti ll, before h e had been prepared, rooted up (?) 4 upon the earth and was great and wonderful with the glory of branches and blossom,5 thou didst hew out with the axe, and by m ean s of th y art he hath been made into a god. And lo! his fatness is already withered and perished, he is fallen from th e h ei ght to the ground, he hath come from great estate to littleness, and the appearance of his countenance hath vanished, and h e ] Barisat himself is

burnt up by fire and reduced to ashes and is n o more; and thou sayest: “To-day I will make another which6 to-morrow shall make ready my food!”7 “He hath perished to utter destruction!”7