xxx 1 After Adam was nine hundred and thirty years old, since he knew that his days were coming to an end, he said: 'Let all my sons assemble themselves to me, that I may bless them before I die, and speak with them.'

2 And they were assembled in three parts, before his sight, in the house of prayer, where they used

3 to worship the Lord God. And they asked him (saying): 'What concerns thee, Father, that thou shouldst assemble us, and why dost thou lie on

4 thy bed? 'Then Adam answered and said: 'My sons, I am sick and in pain.' And all his sons said to him: 'What does it mean, father, this illness and pain?'

xxxi 1 Then said Seth his son: 'O (my) lord, perchance thou hast longed after the fruit of paradise, which thou wast wont to eat, and therefore thou liest in sadness? Tell me and I will go to the nearest gates of paradise and put dust on my head and throw myself down on the earth before the gates of paradise and lament and make entreaty to God with loud lamentation; perchance he will hearken to me and send his angel to bring me the fruit, for which thou hast longed.'

2 Adam answered and said: 'No, my son, I do not long (for this), but I feel weakness and great

3 pain in my body.' Seth answered, 'What is pain, my lord father? I am ignorant; but hide it not from us, but tell us (about it).'

And Adam answered and said: 'Hear me, my sons. When God made us, me and your mother, and placed us in paradise and gave us every tree bearing fruit to eat, he laid a prohibition on us concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is in the midst of paradise; (saying)

2 'Do not eat of it.' But God gave a part of paradise to me and (a part) to your mother: the trees of the eastern part and the north, which is over against Aquilo he gave to me, and to your mother he gave the part of the south and the western part.