[2] These are women who in the next life become sorceresses or witches. Some of them are those called sirens. In that life they acquire tricks unknown in the world. They are like sponges that soak up unmentionable tricks, and are so clever that they quickly put them into practice. The tricks which they learn in that world and are unknown in this include their ability to speak as though they are somewhere else, so that their voice is heard as if coming from good spirits in that other place. They have the ability to appear to be with many people simultaneously, and in this way convince others that they can appear to be present everywhere. They have the ability to speak as if they were various persons simultaneously, and in various places simultaneously. They have the ability to turn aside what is flowing in from good spirits, even what is flowing in from angelic spirits, and to change that instantly and in different ways into what suits themselves. They have the ability to impersonate somebody else by means of his ideas which they adopt and give shape to. They can inspire an affection for themselves into somebody else by worming their way into the very slate of the other person's affections. They can steal away suddenly out of sight, without being noticed. They can exhibit before the eyes of spirits a bright flame around their head, which is an angelic sign, doing so in the presence of many. They can feign innocence in various ways, even by exhibiting infants whom they are caressing. They can also incite others whom they hate to kill them - for they know that they cannot die - and afterwards publicly accuse them of being murderers.

[3] They have called forth from my memory whatever evil I have thought or committed, doing so in a most expert fashion. When I was asleep they have spoken to others just as if the words came from myself, with the result that spirits were convinced of it, and indeed things that were false and disgusting. And there are many other practices in addition to these. The nature of these women is so persuasive that they leave one with no feeling of doubt. This is why their ideas are not communicated as those of other spirits are. And their eyes are, so to speak, like those of a snake, having a vision of and noting things in every direction at once. These witches or sirens are punished severely. Some are in Gehenna; some in a kind of court among snakes; some are punished by being ripped apart, and by various beatings, accompanied by very great pain and torment. In the process of time they are separated from one another and come to look like skeletons from head to toe. A continuation of this subject follows at the end of the chapter.

GENESIS 8

1. And God remembered Noah, and every wild animal, and every beast that was with him in the ark. And God made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.
2. And the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were stopped up, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
3. And the waters receded from off the earth, going back and forth, and the waters abated at the end of a hundred and fifty days.
4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
5. And the waters were going down and abating until the tenth month; and in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.
6. And it happened at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.
7. And he sent out a raven, and it went out going back and forth until the waters dried up from over the earth.
8. And he sent out a dove from himself to see whether the waters had abated from over the face^a of the ground.
9. And the dove found no rest for the sole of its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were over the face^a of the whole earth. And he put out his hand, and took hold of it, and brought it in to himself into the ark.
10. And he waited yet another seven days, and then proceeded to send out the dove from the ark.
11. And the dove came back to him at evening time; and behold, in its mouth an olive leaf plucked off. And Noah knew that the waters had abated from over the earth.
12. And he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not come back to him any more.
13. And it happened in the six hundred and first year, at the beginning, on the first of the month, that the waters dried up from over the earth, and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and saw out, and behold, the face^a of the ground was dry.
14. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
15. And God spoke to Noah, saying,
16. Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons wives with you.
17. Every wild animal of all flesh that is with you - birds, and beasts, and every creeping thing that creeps over the earth - bring out with you, and let them spread out into the earth and be fruitful, and multiply over the earth.
18. And Noah went out, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him.
19. Every wild animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything creeping over the earth - according to their families they went out of the ark.
20. And Noah built an altar to Jehovah, and took from every clean beast, and from every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21. And Jehovah smelled the odour of rest, and Jehovah said in His heart, I will curse the ground no more on account of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his childhood. And I will no more strike every living thing, as I have done.
22. During all the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.

Notes