1 Meqabyan (Ethiopian) 14

And though the Lord chastised the first people with the water of the flood because of the transgression of the children of Cain, He flooded the earth with the water of the flood and washed it from all the filth of the transgression of the children of Cain.

And He destroyed all the unrighteous; for He said, I repent of that which I have done to the children of men; and He destroyed all and left none.

And Noah made a covenant with the Lord, that He would not again destroy the earth with the water of the flood; and the children of Noah too, that they should not eat carrion or what is torn, nor worship strange gods apart from the Lord their Maker; that He might be their God, and that He would not destroy them in a moment for nothing, and would not withhold from them the rain of spring and autumn, but would give them food in its seasons for man and for cattle, fruits and grass and plants; and they, that they should make their ways good in all that the Lord loves.

And after He had given them this ordinance, the children of Israel provoked the Lord by their wickedness, and did not walk like their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who did not go beyond the commandment of the Lord their Maker.

But they, the children of Israel, were perverse in their deeds, from the least of them to the greatest, who did not keep the commandment of the Lord.

Even their Levites and their officials and their scribes, all of them transgressed the commandment of the Lord.

And they did not stand fast in the law and ordinance of the Lord, which Moses commanded them in the book of the law, saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

And love your neighbour as your own soul; and do not worship strange gods, and do not go in to the wife of another, and do not kill a soul, and do not steal.

And do not bear false witness, and do not covet your neighbour's goods, nor anything that your brother possesses, whether his donkey or his ox.

But when He commanded them this, the perverse children of Israel turned aside to oppression and tyranny and iniquity and violence, and going in to the wife of another, and theft and falsehood and the worship of idols.

And at Horeb too the children of Israel provoked the Lord by making a calf that grazes on grass, and they bowed down and said, Behold, these are our gods who brought us out of the land of Egypt.

And they made merry with the work of their hands, and ate and drank and were filled, and rose up to dance.

And therefore Moses was wroth and came down from Mount Sinai; for the Lord said, Your people whom you brought out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, have transgressed and gone astray; they have made a molten calf and bowed down to the idol.

And Moses came down with Joshua his attendant, being wroth with the people; and when Joshua heard, he said, Behold, I hear the sound of battle in the camp of Israel.

And Moses said to Joshua, It is not the sound of battle, but the sound of the treading of wine; and he came down and broke their image and ground it to powder until it became like dust, and cast it into the spring from which the children of Israel drank, at the foot of the mountain.

And then he commanded the Levites to slay one another, because of the evil they had done before the Lord.

And they did as he commanded them, knowing that the anger of the Lord was greater than the slaying of themselves and the slaying of their kinsfolk and their fathers.

And therefore Moses said to them, You have provoked the Lord who fed you and nourished you and brought you out of the house of bondage and gave you to inherit the inheritance which He swore to your fathers to give to them and to their seed after them.

And even there they did not cease from provoking the Lord, for toward all evil and oppression they ran.

And they were not like their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who pleased the Lord by the goodness of their conduct, from their youth until the days of their old age, when He provided to give them both what is on earth and what is in heaven, which He prepared for those who love Him: here a land of inheritance flowing with milk and honey, and there the garden of gladness prepared for the righteous, which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which has not entered into the heart of man, which the Lord prepared for those who love Him, for Abraham and for Isaac and for Jacob, who pleased the Lord in their life.

But the children of those denying and evil men, who walk in the lust of their heart and did not hear the word of the Lord who fed them and nourished them and kept them from their youth;

and they did not remember the Lord who brought them out of the land of Egypt and delivered them from the work of brick and from the harsh labour of bondage;

and they provoked Him all the more; therefore He raises up against them strangers who are round about them, and they rise up against them and oppress them according to His will.