t12papocrypha
Testament of Levi 1
Levi, perceiving his death is near, gathers his sons and begins to transmit what has been shown him — a record of appointed instruction and prophesied events reaching to the day of judgment. The chapter is a title and setting, not yet doctrine: a patriarch in the pattern of covenant transmission, speaking because revelation has disclosed the hour. The frame is the same as Jacob calling his sons in Genesis 49 — a dying witness summoning heirs to receive what was sealed in vision and must now be opened in word.
1
The copy of the words of Levi, what things he appointed to his sons, according to all that they should do, and what things should befall them until the day of judgment. He was in sound health when he called them to him, for it had been shown to him that he should die. And when they were gathered together he said to them:—
