Book of Jasher 1
Chapter 1
1.
And God said, Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness, and God created man in his own image.
2.
And God formed man from the ground,
and he blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul
endowed with speech.
3.
And the Lord said, It
is not good for man to be alone; I will make unto him a helpmeet.
4.
And the Lord caused a deep sleep to
fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took away one of his ribs, and he built
flesh upon it, and formed it and brought it to Adam, and Adam awoke from his
sleep, and behold a woman was standing before him.
5.
And he said, This
is a bone of my bones and it shall be called woman, for this has been taken
from man; and Adam called her name Eve, for she was the mother of all living.
6.
And God blessed them and called their
names Adam and Eve in the day that he created them, and the Lord God said, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
7.
And the Lord God took Adam and his
wife, and he placed them in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it; and
he commanded them and said unto them, From every tree of the garden you may
eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for
in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.
8.
And when God had blessed and
commanded them, he went from them, and Adam and his wife dwelt in the garden
according to the command which the Lord had commanded them.
9.
And the serpent, which God had
created with them in the earth, came to them to incite them to transgress the
command of God which he had commanded them.
10.
And the serpent enticed and persuaded
the woman to eat from the tree of knowledge, and the woman hearkened to the
voice of the serpent, and she transgressed the word of God, and took from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she ate, and she took from it and
gave also to her husband and he ate.
11.
And Adam and his wife transgressed
the command of God which he commanded them, and God knew it, and his anger was
kindled against them and he cursed them.
12.
And the Lord God drove them that day
from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which
they were taken, and they went and dwelt at the east of the garden of Eden; and
Adam knew his wife Eve and she bore two sons and three daughters.
13.
And she called the name of the first
born Cain, saying, I have obtained a man from the Lord, and the name of the
other she called Abel, for she said, In vanity we came
into the earth, and in vanity we shall be taken from it.
14.
And the boys grew up and their father
gave them a possession in the land; and Cain was a tiller of the ground, and
Abel a keeper of sheep.
15.
And it was at the expiration of a few
years, that they brought an approximating offering to the Lord, and Cain
brought from the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought from the firstlings of
his flock from the fat thereof, and God turned and inclined to Abel and his
offering, and a fire came down from the Lord from heaven and consumed it.
16.
And unto Cain and his offering the
Lord did not turn, and he did not incline to it, for he had brought from the
inferior fruit of the ground before the Lord, and Cain was jealous against his
brother Abel on account of this, and he sought a pretext to slay him.
17.
And in some time after, Cain and Abel
his brother, went one day into the field to do their work; and they were both
in the field, Cain tilling and ploughing his ground,
and Abel feeding his flock; and the flock passed that part which Cain had
ploughed in the ground, and it sorely grieved Cain on this account.
18.
And Cain approached his brother Abel
in anger, and he said unto him, What is there between
me and thee, that thou comest to dwell and bring thy
flock to feed in my land?
19.
And Abel answered his brother Cain
and said unto him, What is there between me and thee,
that thou shalt eat the flesh of my flock and clothe
thyself with their wool?
20.
And now therefore, put off the wool
of my sheep with which thou hast clothed thyself, and recompense me for their
fruit and flesh which thou hast eaten, and when thou shalt
have done this, I will then go from thy land as thou hast said?
21.
And Cain said to his brother Abel,
Surely if I slay thee this day, who will require thy
blood from me?
22.
And Abel answered Cain, saying,
Surely God who has made us in the earth, he will avenge my cause, and he will
require my blood from thee shouldst thou slay me, for
the Lord is the judge and arbiter, and it is he who will requite man according
to his evil, and the wicked man according to the wickedness that he may do upon
earth.
23.
And now, if thou shouldst
slay me here, surely God knoweth thy secret views,
and will judge thee for the evil which thou didst declare to do unto me this
day.
24.
And when Cain heard the words which
Abel his brother had spoken, behold the anger of Cain was kindled against his
brother Abel for declaring this thing.
25.
And Cain hastened and rose up, and
took the iron part of his ploughing instrument, with
which he suddenly smote his brother and he slew him, and Cain spilt the blood
of his brother Abel upon the earth, and the blood of Abel streamed upon the
earth before the flock.
26.
And after this Cain repented having
slain his brother, and he was sadly grieved, and he wept over him and it vexed
him exceedingly.
27.
And Cain rose up and dug a hole in
the field, wherein he put his brother’s body, and he turned the dust over it.
28.
And the Lord knew what Cain had done
to his brother, and the Lord appeared to Cain and said unto him, Where is Abel thy brother that was with thee?
29.
And Cain dissembled, and said, I do
not know, am I my brother’s keeper? And the Lord said unto him, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground where thou hast slain him.
30.
For thou hast slain thy brother and
hast dissembled before me, and didst imagine in thy heart that I saw thee not,
nor knew all thy actions.
31.
But thou didst this thing and didst
slay thy brother for naught and because he spoke rightly to thee, and now,
therefore, cursed be thou from the ground which opened its mouth to receive thy
brother’s blood from thy hand, and wherein thou didst bury him.
32.
And it shall be when thou shalt till it, it shall no more give thee its strength as
in the beginning, for thorns and thistles shall the ground produce,
and thou shalt be moving and wandering in the earth
until the day of thy death.
33.
And at that time Cain went out from
the presence of the Lord, from the place where he was, and he went moving and
wandering in the land toward the east of Eden, he and all belonging to him.
34.
And Cain knew his wife in those days,
and she conceived and bare a son, and he called his
name Enoch, saying, In that time the Lord began to give him rest and quiet in
the earth.
35.
And at that time Cain also began to
build a city: and he built the city and he called the name of the city Enoch,
according to the name of his son; for in those days the Lord had given him rest
upon the earth, and he did not move about and wander as in the beginning.
36.
And Irad
was born to Enoch, and Irad begat Mechuyael
and Mechuyael begat Methusael.
