Assumption of Moses

Chapter 3

  1. 1 And in those days a king from the east shall come against them and his cavalry shall cover their
  2. 2 land. And he shall burn their colony with fire together with the holy temple of the Lord, and he shall
  3. 3 carry away all the holy vessels. And he shall cast forth all the people, and he shall take them to the
  4. 4 land of his nativity, yea he shall take the two tribes with him. Then the two tribes shall call upon the
  5. 5 ten tribes, and shall march as a lioness on the dusty plains, being hungry and thirsty. And they shall cry aloud: ‘Righteous and holy is the Lord, for, inasmuch as ye have sinned, we too, in like manner,
  6. 6 have been carried away with you, together with our children. Then the ten tribes shall mourn on
  7. 7 hearing the reproaches of the two tribes, and they shall say: ‘What have we done unto you,
  8. 8 brethren? Has not this tribulation come on all the house of Israel?’ And all the tribes shall mourn,
  9. 9 crying unto heaven and saying: ‘God of Abraham God of Isaac and God of Jacob, remember Thy covenant which Thou didst make with them, and the oath which Thou didst swear unto them by
  10. 10 Thyself, that their seed should never fail from the land which Thou hast given them.’ Then they
  11. 11 shall remember me, saying, in that day, tribe unto tribe and each man unto his neighbour: ‘ Is not this that which Moses did then declare unto us in prophecies, who suffered many things in Egypt
  12. 12 and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness during forty years: and assuredly called heaven and earth to witness against us, that we should not transgress His commandments, in the which he was
  13. 13 a mediator unto us? Behold these things have befallen us after his death according to his declaration, as he declared to us at that time, yea behold these have taken place even to our being carried away
  14. 14 captive into the country of the east.’ Who shall be also in bondage for about seventy and seven years.