CHAP. XXIII.

Adam and Eve gird themselves and make the first altar ever built.

THEN Adam wept more and said, "O God, have mercy on me, so far as to take upon Thee, that which I will do."

2 But God took His Word from Adam and Eve.

3 Then Adam and Eve stood on their feet; and Adam said to Eve "Gird thyself, and I also will gird myself." And she girded herself, as Adam told her.

4 Then Adam and Eve took stones and placed them in the shape of an altar; and they took leaves from the trees outside the garden, with which they wiped, from the face of the rock, the blood they had spilled.

5 But that which had dropped on the sand, they took together with the dust wherewith it was mingled and offered it upon the altar as an offering unto God.

6 Then Adam and Eve stood under the altar and wept, thus entreating God, "Forgive us our trespass and our sin, and look upon us with Thine eye of mercy. For when we were in the garden our praises and our hymns went up before Thee without ceasing.

7 "But when we came into this strange land, pure praise was no longer ours, nor righteous prayer, nor understanding hearts, nor sweet thoughts, nor just counsels, nor long discernment, nor upright feelings, neither is our bright nature left us. But our body is changed from the similitude in which it was at first, when we were created.

8 "Yet now look upon our blood which is offered upon these stones, and accept it at our hands, like the praise we used to sing unto Thee at first, when in the garden."

9 And Adam began to make more requests unto God.