The Polity Settled By Moses; And How He Disappeared From Among
Mankind.

1. When forty years were completed, within thirty days, Moses
gathered the congregation together near Jordan, where the city
Abila now stands, a place full of palm-trees; and all the people
being come together, he spake thus to them: -

2. "O you Israelites and fellow soldiers, who have been partners
with me in this long and uneasy journey; since it is now the will
of God, and the course of old age, at a hundred and twenty,
requires it that I should depart out of this life; and since God
has forbidden me to be a patron or an assistant to you in what
remains to be done beyond Jordan; I thought it reasonable not to
leave off my endeavors even now for your happiness, but to do my
utmost to procure for you the eternal enjoyment of good things,
and a memorial for myself, when you shall be in the fruition of
great plenty and prosperity. Come, therefore, let me suggest to
you by what means you may he happy, and may leave an eternal
prosperous possession thereof to your children after you, and
then let me thus go out of the world; and I cannot but deserve to
be believed by you, both on account of the great things I have
already done for you, and because, when souls are about to leave
the body, they speak with the sincerest freedom. O children of
Israel! there is but one source of happiness for all mankind, the
favor of God (15) for he alone is able to give good things to
those that deserve them, and to deprive those of them that sin
against him; towards whom, if you behave yourselves according to
his will, and according to what I, who well understand his mind,
do exhort you to, you will both be esteemed blessed, and will be