Testament of Joseph 8

1So I say to you, my children, that it was about the sixth hour when she left me. And after bending my knee to the Lord all day and all night, toward dawn I rose, weeping and asking for deliverance from her.

2At last, by force, she seized my garments, violently dragging me toward intercourse.

3Therefore, when I saw that she, in her frenzy, was seizing my tunic, leaving it [and shaking it off], I fled naked.

4But she, having seized this while I was naked, slandered me; and when her husband came, he threw me into prison in his house, and on the next day, after flogging me, he sent me into Pharaoh’s dungeon.

5And while I was in chains, the Egyptian woman was held together by grief; and when she came, she would listen in on me, how I gave thanks to the Lord and sang hymns in the house of darkness, and rejoiced with a cheerful voice, glorifying my God, because by a pretext I had been delivered from the Egyptian woman.

6And she said to me, “See then, you love me. Let this be enough for me: only take thought for my life and for my children, and I have hope that I shall also obtain my desire.”

7But she did not know that I spoke thus because of my Lord, and not because of her.

8For if anyone falls under the passion of desire and is enslaved to it, as she also was, even if he hears something good, he takes it in relation to that passion, toward his evil desire.