Kebra Nagast 1

The Kebra Nagast ('Glory of Kings') is the Ethiopian national epic, not scripture: it recounts the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, the birth of their son, and his removal of the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Aksum. Compiled in its present Ge'ez form around the 14th century from older Coptic and Arabic material, it has long served as the foundational text of Ethiopian royal and national identity -- but it is a legendary epic, not part of any church's biblical canon, including the Ethiopian Orthodox 'broader canon' church-order texts elsewhere in this corpus. Translated here by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (1922).

1In praising God the Father, the Sustainer of the universe, and His Son Jesus Christ, through Whom everything came into being, and without Whom nothing came into being, and the Holy Triune Spirit, the Paraclete, Who goeth forth from the Father, and deriveth from the Son, we believe in and adore the Trinity, one God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

2The interpretation and explanation of the Three Hundred and Eighteen Orthodox [Fathers] concerning splendour, and greatness, and dignity, and how God gave them to the children of Adam, and especially concerning the greatness and splendour of Zion, the Tabernacle (tabot) of the Law of God, of which He Himself is the Maker and Fashioner, in the fortress of His holiness before all created things, [both] angels and men.

3For the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit with good fellowship and right good will and cordial agreement together made the Heavenly Zion to be the place of habitation of their Glory.

4And then the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit said, "Let Us make man in Our similitude and likeness," and with ready agreement and good will They were all of this opinion.

5And the Son said, "I will put on the body of Adam," and the Holy Spirit said, "I will dwell in the heart[s] of the Prophets and the Righteous," and this common agreement and covenant was [fulfilled] in Zion, the City of their Glory.

6And David said, "Remember Thine agreement which Thou didst make of old for salvation, the rod of Thine inheritance, in Mount Zion wherein Thou dost dwell."

7And He made Adam in His own image and likeness, so that He might remove Satan because of his pride, together with his host, and might establish Adam--His own plant--together with the righteous, His children, for His praises.

8For the plan of God was decided upon and decreed in that He said, "I will become man, and I will be in everything which I have created, I will abide in flesh."

9And in the days that came after, by His good pleasure there was born in the flesh of the Second Zion the second Adam, Who was our Saviour Christ.

10This is our glory and our faith, our hope and our life, the Second Zion.