1
A great messenger appears, his face shining like the rays of the sun, his breast girded as with gold, and his feet like bronze melted in fire.
2
Tzefanyah falls before him, thinking the Master Himself has appeared.
3
The messenger stops him and says, 'Do not worship me. I am not the Master Almighty.'
4
He identifies himself as Eremiel, the great messenger appointed over the abyss and Hades, where souls have been held from the days after the Flood until the present.
5
Tzefanyah asks about the great spirit he saw, and Eremiel identifies him as the Accuser who accuses Adam before the Master.
6
The Accuser opens a scroll and the seer reads it in his own tongue.
7
The scroll contains Tzefanyah's failures: neglected mercy, neglected correction, failures toward widows, orphans, and the children of Yisra'el.
8
Another scroll is brought containing his good deeds.
9
The surviving text breaks across missing pages, but the narrative resumes after the good has prevailed sufficiently for the seer to escape the Accuser's claim. Provenance note. Akhmimic witness; two manuscript pages are missing between the …