I first saw the “Negative Confessions” while museum touring with Isabel in Chicago last year. It’s such a cool look at how people 3,500 years ago were not so different from us. And also an interesting glimpse at what they thought was important.
My we all say “I altered not the weights of the balance.”
The Negative Confessions From the Book of the Dead, the ancient Egyptian funerary text.
I harmed no one.
from The Book of the Dead
I made neither my relatives nor my companions unhappy.
I did no vile act on the Abode of Truth.
I had no acquaintance with evil.
I did no evil.
I made no one work beyond their capabilities.
I caused no one to suffer, nor to be fearful, poor or wretched.
I did not do what the gods hate.
I caused no slave to be misused by his master.
I caused no one to hunger.
I caused no one to weep.
I did not kill.
I commanded no one to kill treacherously.
I did not lie.
I plundered not the supplies of the temples.
I took not the bread of the gods.
I did not steal offerings to the dead.
I did not fornicate.
I committed no shameful act with a priest.
I did not overcharge nor defraud by lessening the supplies.
I altered not the weights of the balance.
I tampered not with the balance itself.
I stole no milk from the mouth of a child.
I stole no cattle from their pasture.
I did not snare birds sacred to the gods.
I took no fish from their lakes.
I hindered not the waters of the inundation.
I diverted no water running in a canal.
I did not extinguish the offering flame before its time.
I deprived not the gods of their choice offering.
I injured no cattle belonging to the gods.
I defied no god.
I am pure, pure, pure.