Deliver my soul from self-delusion, O my God, that my body too may be delivered from bodily sin.
Deliver my soul from mad pride and burning wrath, and my body will neither rave nor burn.
The soul fashioned the body as its own image, as the organ of its speech. Mute is the body and motionless, for good and for evil alike, if the soul will not speak.
The body knows nothing of adultery, unless the soul tells it. In the heart adultery is accomplished; the body only repeats, in its own cumbersome way, what was woven with fine threads in the secret chambers of the heart.
My neighbors, look upon woman as woman looks upon herself, and self-delusion will fall like scales from your eyes. Look upon every being from within that being, and you will look upon it not with desire but with compassion. Thou, O God, hast sanctified marriage, and Thou hast sanctified celibacy.
Those who have the wisdom and the power to use all the life that has descended into them from Thee in service to Thee — Thou hast blessed.
And those who are not able to hold within themselves all the life given them, Thou hast blessed, that they may divide it and pass it on to new beings, through woman.
Truly it is self-delusion in a man to think that woman attracts him. Behold, the unused life within a man — it drives the man toward woman, for it does not wish to remain unused. Thou art life, O my God, and life is light. Thou art light, O my God, and Thou dost not wish to be hidden in darkness and not to shine.
Blessed is the man who comes to know Thee within himself, and gives Thee free rein to shine in his soul and in his body.
It matters not whether Thou wilt shine in one body, or in a body divided — Thou desirest only to shine, and to illumine the earth, and to fill it with Thine own life and Thine own strength.
Blessed is the woman from whose eyes self-delusion falls, and who comes to know man as man knows himself, and casts off desire, and is filled with compassion. And she holds life within herself with fear and with pride, as though she held heaven within herself.
Blessed is everyone who learns in good time that adultery is a defiling and a murder of life.
With God there is no jesting, O sons of earth. It is safer to jest with fire than with God.
Nor is the life that comes from God an opium for momentary drunkennesses, after which self-delusion is laid bare; while shame and humiliation fall like a heavy stone upon the heart, emptied of one senseless desire.
Deliver my soul from self-delusion, O my God, that my body too may be delivered from bodily sin.