Behold, these things have we declared unto you, setting before you the departure from the body of our father the patriarch Jacob Israel according to the measure whereunto we have attained, as it is written in the God-inspired Scriptures and in the ancient records of our holy fathers the Apostles, I Athanasius your father.
2If ye desire to know the confirmation of this testament of the patriarch Jacob, take unto yourselves the Genesis of the prophet Moses the lawgiver, and read therein; it shall enlighten your mind, and ye shall find these things and yet more written concerning him.
3And furthermore, ye shall find God and His angel keeping company with them while they were yet in the body, speaking with them many times, in many passages of the Scripture.
4And again, that He spake in many passages in the Scripture with the patriarch Jacob, saying: 'I will bless thy seed as the stars of heaven.'
5And again, when Jacob spake with Joseph his son: 'My God appeared unto me in the land of Canaan, in Luz, and blessed me, saying: I will bless thee, and cause thee to multiply, and cause peoples and nations to proceed from thee, and I will give this land unto thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.'
6Behold therefore, O my beloved, these things have I heard concerning our father the patriarch; let us speak therefore of their deeds, and their virtue, and their godliness, and their love toward mankind, and their hospitality, that we may be worthy to become their children in the kingdom of the heavens, that they may make supplication for us before God, that He may deliver us from the torments in Amente, which the holy patriarch Jacob named in his words full of all sweetness.
7For he taught his children concerning the punishments, calling them the sword of the Lord God, which is the fire that is prepared, rendering vengeance unto the sinners and them that are defiled; these are the things which the patriarch Jacob revealed, instructing the remnant of his children, that they who love instruction may hear and perform that which is good at all times, loving one another, and loving charity and mercy; for mercy glorieth against judgment, and charity covereth a multitude of sins, and whosoever hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto God.