The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs 95

T¹🔗he record of the testament of Gad, what things he spake unto his sons, in the hundred and twenty-seventh year of his life, saying: I was the seventh son born to Jacob, and I was valiant in keeping the flocks.

²🔗 I guarded at night the flock; and whenever the lion came, or wolf, or leopard, or bear, or any wild beast against the fold, I pursued it, and with my hand seizing its foot, and whirling it round, I stunned it, and hurled it over two furlongs, and so killed it.

³🔗 Now Joseph was feeding the flock with us for about thirty days, and being tender, he fell sick by reason of the heat.

⁴🔗 And he returned to Hebron to his father, who made him lie down near him, because he loved him.

⁵🔗 And Joseph told our father that the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah were slaying the best of the beasts, and devouring them without the knowledge of Judah and Reuben.

⁶🔗 For he saw that I delivered a lamb out of the mouth of the bear, and I put the bear to death; and the lamb I slew, being grieved concerning it that it could not live, and we ate it, and he told our father.

⁷🔗 And I was wroth with Joseph for that thing until the day that he was sold into Egypt.

⁸🔗 And the spirit of hatred was in me, and I wished not either to see Joseph or to hear him.

⁹🔗 And he rebuked us to our faces for having eaten of the flock without Judah.

¹⁰🔗 And whatsoever things he told our father, he believed him.