(34) Mercy was shown to it previously to vengeance, Because flesh and skin grow not without tender care, How should they not grow when warmed by the Friend's love. If vengeance follows as a necessary consequence, That you may make an offering of that substance, Mercy follows again to compensate for it, I am Abraham, and you his son under the knife. Lay down your head! 'I have seen I must sacrifice you.' Yield your head to vengeance, your heart to constancy, That I may cut your throat like an Ismailian's.

(89) And the Lord of the sheep sent the lamb to another lamb and raised it to being a ram and leader of the sheep instead of that ram which had †forsaken its glory†.

(89) And that sheep whose eyes were opened saw that ram, which was amongst the sheep, till it †forsook its glory† and began to butt those sheep, and trampled upon them, and behaved itself unseemly.

(9) He has her turn her face from her people and the gang of her adulterers with whom she had mingled, to devote herself now to her king, her real lord, and to forget the house of the earthly father with whom things were bad for her, and remember her father in heaven. So Abraham was told,

(89) And those sheep grew and multiplied; but all the dogs, and foxes, and wild boars feared and fled before it, and that ram butted and killed the wild beasts, and those wild beasts had no longer any power among the sheep and robbed them no more of ought. 48b. And that ram begat many sheep and fell asleep; and a little sheep became ram in its stead, and became prince and leader of those sheep.

(3) Therefore it was enjoined upon the Hebrews To offer still, though sometimes what was offered Might be commuted, as thou ought'st to know. The other, which is known to thee as matter, May well indeed be such that one errs not If it for other matter be exchanged. But let none shift the burden on his shoulder At his arbitrament, without the turning Both of the white and of the yellow key; And every permutation deem as foolish, If in the substitute the thing relinquished, As the four is in six, be not contained. Therefore whatever thing has so great weight In value that it drags down every balance, Cannot be satisfied with other spending. Let mortals never take a vow in jest; Be faithful and not blind in doing that, As Jephthah was in his first offering, Whom more beseemed to say, 'I have done wrong, Than to do worse by keeping; and as foolish Thou the great leader of the Greeks wilt find, Whence wept Iphigenia her fair face, And made for her both wise and simple weep, Who heard such kind of worship spoken of.'