Section 10

When then * * * * * *, I entered the house, 4 I mounted up to the highest place [in it], and I call to my sheep. To the sheep in my care do I call. I pipe to them; I get them to hear, so that they come unto me. To them I pipe on my pipe, and beat on my tabour (?), [leading them] to the water. 5 I call to them: "My little sheep, little sheep, come! Rise up at my call! Come, rise at my call; then will you 'scape the cloud-dragons. Come, come unto me! I am a shepherd whose boat is soon coming. My boat of glory is coming; and I come with it, and bring my sheep and lambs in aboard it. Every one who gives ear to my call and heed gives unto my voice, and who turns his gaze unto me, of him take I hold with my hands and bring him unto me inboard my boat." But every lamb, male and female, that suffered himself to be caught, the water-whirl carried away, the greedy water did swallow. Whoever gave no ear to my call, sank under. To the highest part of the vessel I went. The bows stand up with the bow-post. 6 I say: How woeful am I for my sheep who p. 83 because of the mud have sunk under. The water-whirl sank them away from my reach, the swirling whirl of the water. How grieved am I for the rams whose fleece on their sides has dragged them down into the deep. How grieved am I for the lambkins whose bellies have not [yet] been filled full of milk. Of a thousand, one I recovered; of a whole generation I found again two. Happy is he who [stood up?] in the water, and in whose ears no water has entered. Happy the great rams who have stamped with their feet. Happy is he who has escaped from the Seven and Twelve, the sheep-stealers. Happy is he who has not couched down, has not lain down, has not loved to sleep deeply. Happy is he who in this defective age of Bishlom 1 has stayed whole. Happy are they who free themselves from the snares of Rūhā (the Mother World-Spirit), from the filth and the shame and the bondage that have no end. My chosen! whoever shall live at the end of this age of Nirig (Mars), for him let his own conscience be a support. He will come and mount up to the Radiant Dwelling, to the region whose sun never sets, and whose light-lamps 2 never darken. Life is exalted and is victorious, and victorious is the Man who has come hither. THE LOVING SHEPHERDS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD (§ 12). In the Name of Great Life may hallowed Light be glorified. A TREASURE calls from without hither and speaks: "Come, be for me a loving shepherd and watch me a thousand out of ten thousand."— "So then will I be a loving shepherd for thee and watch thee a thousand out of ten thousand. But how full is the world of vileness and sown full of thorns and of thistles!"—