Book of Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo)

a house for Me in them, which itself will also be taken down again, because they are going to sin against Me. And the race of men will be to Me like the drip from a water jar, and will be estimated like spittle. And Moses, hastening, descended, and saw the Calf, and looked at the tablets, and saw that they were not written, and hastening, he broke them. And his hands were opened, and he was made like a woman giving birth in her firstfruits, who, when she is held in pains, and her hands are upon her breast, and there is no strength to help her birth. And it happened after one hour, he said in his sense: Bitterness does not possess until victory, nor does evil prevail forever. And now I will rise, and I will strengthen my loins, just as if they have sinned, those things which have been told to me above will not be in vain. And rising, he broke the Calf, and put it into the water, and made the people drink. And it happened, if anyone had in the will of his sense that the calf should be perfected, his tongue was cut off; if anyone, however, had consented forced by fear, his vision shone. And then Moses ascended the mountain, and prayed to the Lord, saying: Behold now, You God, who planted this vineyard, and gave its roots into the abyss, and stretched its branches original: "farmenta" up to Your most high throne, look at this time, because this vineyard has sent forth its fruit, and has not known its cultivator. And now if You will be angry at Your vineyard, and will uproot it from the abyss, and dry up its branches from Your most high and eternal throne, the abyss will no longer come to nourish it, nor Your throne to cool Your vineyard, that which You have ignited. For You are He who is all light, and You have adorned Your house with precious stones, and gold, and aromatics, and jasper, and wood of balsam, and cinnamon, and roots of myrrh, and costus. You have dispersed Your house, and by diversifying them, and with the sweetness of diverse drink, You have satiated it. If, therefore, You will not have had mercy on Your vineyard, everything, Lord, has been done in vain, and You will not have one who may glorify You. For even if You plant another vineyard, it will not trust You, because You destroyed the former. For if leaving, You will leave the world, and who will do for You what You spoke as God? And now let Your anger be contained from the vineyard, the greater that has been foretold by You, and that which is to be said, and let not Your labor be done in vain, nor let Your inheritance be distributed among the vile. And God said to him: Behold, I have become merciful according to your words. Carve, therefore, for yourself two stone tablets, from that place where you had carved the former, and rewrite on them the justices that were in the first. And Moses hastened, and did everything that God commanded him. And he made the tablets descend, and its vessels, and the ark, and the lamp, and the table, and the thurible original: "thuribulum" of burnt offerings, and the hippomidem perhaps a variant or specialized vessel for holy service, and the breastpiece, and the precious stones, and the laver, and the bases, and everything that was shown to him. And he composed all the vestments of the priests, the apron too, and the rest, and the cithara, and the golden plate, and the holy crown, and the oil of the anointing of the priests, and he sanctified the priests themselves. And when all was completed, a cloud covered them all. Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and God spoke to him from the tabernacle, saying: This is the law of the thurible in which you shall offer to Me, and you shall pray for your souls. From these things, however, from which you shall offer to Me, offer from the cattle a calf, and a sheep, and a goat: for from birds, a turtle dove, and a pigeon. And if leprosy shall have been in your land, and it shall be that the leper is purged, they shall take for the Lord two living chicks, and cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and he shall approach the priest, and he shall kill one, but one shall be warm, and he shall place the leper in everything that I commanded in My law. And it shall be when the times have met with you, you shall sanctify Me on the day of the festival, and you shall rejoice in My sight in the festival of Unleavened Bread, and you shall set in My sight bread,