1 This is what we have transmitted: We have described the demise of and the mourning for the father of fathers, Jacob-Israel, to the extent of our ability to do this; also as it is written in the spiritual books of God and as we have found it in the ancient treasury of knowledge of our fathers, the holy, pure apostles.
2 And if you wish to know the life history and get new knowledge of the father of fathers, Jacob, then take a father who is attested in the Old Testament.
3 Moses is the one who wrote it, the first of the prophets, the author of the Law.
4 Read from it and enlighten your insights.
5 You will find this and more in it, written for your sake.
6 You will find that God and his angels were their friends while they were in their bodies, and that God kept on speaking to them many times in various passages from the Book.
7 Also he says in many passages with regard to the patriarch Jacob, the father of fathers, in the Book, thus, “My son, I will bless your descendants like the stars of the heavens.”
8 And our father Jacob would speak to his son Joseph and say to him, “My God appeared to me in the land of Canaan at Luz and blessed me and said to me, ‘I will bless you and multiply you and make you a mighty people.
9 They shall go out (to war?) like the other nations of this earth and your descendants will increase forever.’ ”
10 This is what we have heard, O my brothers and my loved ones, from our fathers, the patriarchs.
11 And it is incumbent upon us that we have zeal for their deeds, their purity, their faith, their love of mankind, and their acceptance of strangers; in order that we may lay claim to be their sons in the kingdom of heaven, so that they will intercede for us before God that we may be saved from the torture of hell.
12 These are the ones whom the Arabs have designated as the holy fathers.
13 Jacob instructed his sons with regard to punishment, and he would call them the sword of the Lord, which is the river of fire, prepared with its waves to engulf the evildoers and the impure.
14 These are the things the power of which the father of fathers, Jacob, expounded and taught to all his sons that the wise ones might hear and pursue righteousness in mutual love with mercy and compassion.
15 For mercy saves people from penalties and mercy overcomes a multitude of wrongs.
16 Truly, one who shows mercy to the poor, that one makes a loan to God.
17 So now, my beloved sons, do not slacken from prayer and fasting ever at any time, and by the life of the religion you will drive away the demons.
18 O my dear son, avoid the evil ways of the world, which are anger and depravity and all vicious deeds.
19 And beware of injustice and blasphemy and abduction.
20 For the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God, nor will the adulterers, nor the accursed, nor those who commit outrages and have sexual intercourse with males, nor the gluttons, nor the worshipers of idols, nor those who utter imprecations, nor those who pollute themselves outside of pure marriage; and others whom we have not presented or even mentioned shall not come near the kingdom of God.
21 O my sons, honor the saints, for they are the ones who will intercede for you.
22 O my sons, be generous to strangers and you will be given exactly what was given to the great Abraham, the father of fathers, and to our father Isaac, his son.
23 O my sons, do for the poor what will increase compassion for them here and now, so that God will give you the bread of life forever in the kingdom of God.
24 For to the one who has given a poor person bread in this world God will give a portion from the tree of life.
25 Clothe the poor person who is naked on the earth, so that God may clothe you with the apparel of glory in the kingdom of heaven, and you will be the sons of our holy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in heaven forever.
26 Be concerned with the reading of the word of God in his books here below, and remember the saints who have written of their lives, their sufferings, and their prostrations in prayer.
27 In the future, it shall not be prevented that they should be inscribed in the book of life in the kingdom of heaven.
28 And you will be counted among the saints, those who pleased God in their lifetime and will rejoice with the angels in the land of eternal life.