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CHAPTER 56
1. And Andrew came forward and said: "My Lord and Saviour, thy light-power hath
prophesied aforetime through David concerning this repentance which Pistis Sophia
hath uttered, and said in the one-hundred-and-eighth Psalm:
2. "'God, keep not silent at my praise-singing.

3. "'For the mouths of the sinner and crafty have opened their chops against me
and with crafty deceitful tongue have talked behind me.
4. "'And they have surrounded me with words of hate and have fought against me
without a cause.
5. "'Instead of loving me they have slandered me. But I prayed.

6. "'They showed evil against me for good and hate for my love.
7. "'Set a sinner over him, and let the slanderer stand at his right hand.
8. "'When sentence is passed upon him, may he go forth condemned and his prayer
become sin.
9. "'May his days be shortened and another receive his overseership.
10. "'May his children become orphans and his wife a widow.

11. "'May his children be carried away and be driven forth and beg; may they be
thrown out of their houses.
12. "'May the money-lender sift out all that he hath, and may strangers plunder all
his best efforts.

13. "'Let there be no man to back him, and no one to take pity on his orphans.
14. "'May his children be exterminated and his name blotted out in a single
generation.
15. "'Let the sin of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and the sin of his
mother be not blotted out.
16. "'Let them be ever present to the Lord and his memory be rooted out from the

earth;
17. "'In that he hath not thought of using mercy and hath persecuted a poor and
wretched man and hath persecuted a sorry creature to slay him.
18. "'He loved cursing,--and it shall come unto him. He desired not blessing,--it shall

stay far from him.
19. "'He clothed himself with cursing as with a vesture, and it entered into his
bowels as water, and it was as oil in his bones.
20. "'May it be for him as a garment in which he shall be wrapped, and as a girdle
with which he shall ever be girded.
21. "'This is the work of them who slander [me] before the Lord, and speak

unlawfully against my soul.
22. "'But do thou, O Lord God, be gracious unto me; for thy name's sake save me.
23. "'For I am poor and I am wretched; my heart is tumult within me.