That is why it is written regarding the sota when she lies with another: “And commit a trespass against him [umaala bo maal].” Why are there these two me’ilot?17The plural of maal is me'ilot. One because she is deceitful with the Holy One blessed be He, and the second because she is deceitful with her husband. How is she deceitful with her husband?
Because she says regarding the mamzer that he is his son, but he is not his son, and he inherits his property. How is she deceitful with the Holy One blessed be He? It is because the Holy One blessed be He said that mamzerim will not receive a portion of the land, but rather, only one whose descent traces back to his father, but she says regarding the mamzer that he is her husband’s son and gives him a portion of the land.
What is “and commit a trespass against him”?18It sounds like a trespass against one, not two. The Holy One blessed be He said: ‘You are able to deceive your husband, but you are not able to deceive Me, as I see everything,’ as it is written: “The eyes of the Lord, they rove throughout the earth” (Zechariah 4:10). And it says: “The eyes of the Lord observe the wicked and the good” (Proverbs 15:3). Not as you thought to bequeath to your mamzer your husband’s property; I know the mamzer, and I will banish him from the world, like what Rabbi Ḥanina said: Once in sixty or seventy years the Holy One blessed be He brings a great pestilence to the world and eliminates from them the mamzerim and takes the upright with them, so as not to publicize the sinners.
“He, too, is wise, and has brought evil” (Isaiah 31:2) – is it not logical that it not be so; [should it not be]: “He, too, is wise, and has brought good”? It is, rather, to teach you that even the evil that the Holy One blessed be He brings to the world, He brings it with wisdom. “He has not retracted His words, but He will rise up against the house of evildoers and against the help of performers of iniquity” (Isaiah 31:2).
Rabbi Huna said: A mamzer does not live more than thirty days. Rabbi Ze’eira when he ascended to here heard the sound of people calling: Mamzer, and: Mamzeret. He said to them: ‘What is this?’ He said: Apparently, what Rabbi Huna said: A mamzer does not live more than thirty days, is no longer true.
Rav Yaakov bar Aḥa said to him: ‘I was with you when Rabbi Abba bar Rav Huna said in the name of Rav: A mamzer does not live more than thirty days. When? It is when it is not publicized. But, if it is public, he lives.’ That is, “and commit a trespass against him” – but not against the Holy One blessed be He.