Testament of Naphtali 3:1

Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs
Pseudepigrapha

Be ye, therefore, not eager to corrupt your doings through covetousness or with vain words to beguile your souls; because if ye keep silence in purity of heart, ye shall understand how to hold fast the will of God, and to cast away the will of Beliar. Sun and moon and stars change not their order; so do ye also change not the law of God in the disorderliness of your doings. The Gentiles went astray, and forsook the Lord, and changed their order, and obeyed stocks and stones, spirits of deceit. But ye shall not be so, my children, recognizing in the firmament, in the earth, and in the sea, and in all created things, the Lord who made all things, that ye become not as Sodom, which changed the order of nature.

Ephesians 5:6

New Testament

5 For you can be confident of this one thing: that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let nobody deceive you with empty words, for because of these things God’s wrath comes on the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not be sharers with them, 8 for you were at one time darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live like children of light— 9 for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth— 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

 Notes and References

"... This portion of the Torah was very popular and powerful in the intertestamental period, that is the period between the time of Ezra and Nehemiah and the establishment of the royal house of Herod, i.e., the beginning of the 1st Century A.D., or as it is counted by Jews and others, the 1st Century C.E. The reason that this Torah reading was so popular and important is because Jews from the 3rd Century B.C. started to think that the blessings that Jacob gave his sons that are a major part of this Torah portion (Vayechi, “and he lived” in Hebrew) is prophetic and it has to do with the far future or the Messianic Period of the last days. There are important books written during that period called “intertestamental,” books that are based on Jacob’s blessings to his sons. The major one that has some important “messianic” elements is the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Here are some examples of the use of this book in the New Testament ... A quotation from the testament of Levi 6:10-11 is found in 1 Thessalonians 2:16 ... A quotation from the Testament of Gad 6:10 is found in Romans 12:19 ... A quotation from the Testament of Benjamin 4:3 is found in Romans 12:21 ... A quotation from the Testament of Gad 5:7 is found in 2 Corinthians 7:10 ... A quotation from the Testament of Naphtali 3:1 is found in Ephesians 5:6 ..."

Shulam, Joseph The Intertestamental Period (pp. 1-5) kehila.org, 2021

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