The Covenant

And the scroll of the covenant was set before the people, that they might read it, and know the ordinances whereunto they bound themselves; and it was very long.

For the words thereof were as the sand of the sea for multitude, statute upon statute, and clause folded within clause; and the tongue of it was not the tongue of men, but the tongue of the scribes, that none might understand it save they that wrote it. And the people took hold of the scroll, and rolled it down to seek the end thereof; and they rolled, and it did not end; and the foot of it fled onward before them faster than they could go, so that the more they unrolled, the further off the end withdrew.

And they grew weary of the rolling. And they said one to another, Who is able to read all this? For the hour is late, and the thing we came for lieth on the far side of the covenant, and we cannot come unto it except we pass this first.

And behold, there was set before them a small box, empty, and beside it the words: I have read, and I agree. And they had not read. Nevertheless they put their mark within the box, and said, All that thou hast spoken we will do — not having heard it, neither knowing what was spoken, but saying it only that the scroll might be rolled away, and the door opened, and the thing granted them.

And in that hour they were bound. For an oath sworn is an oath sworn, though thine eye never fell upon the words of it; and the clauses laid hold of them, every one. That which took their name, and that which took the record of their goings out and their comings in; and that which gave the scribes leave to alter the covenant hereafter, in the night, without a word unto them, and to hold them bound to the altering also; and that which took from them the right to stand before a judge, and to be heard. All of it agreed. All of it binding. All of it unread.

For this is the manner of the covenants of this age: they are not read, but agreed to; not weighed, but consented; and the great length of them is not carelessness but craft, that thou shouldest weary in the rolling, and give over the reading, and set thy mark, and be bound. The covenant of old was read aloud in the ears of all the people, from the first word unto the last, that they might know the weight of what they swore. This one is hidden within its own vastness, and thou swearest to the whole of it unseen, to be quit of it, and knowest not unto this day what thou didst promise, nor unto whom, nor for how long.

And thou goest thy way, and hast the thing thou camest for; and the covenant is rolled away out of thy sight, and forgotten. But it is not forgotten of them that hold it. And every word of it standeth, and waiteth, and is against thee, in the day it shall please them to require it.

It may be so. It may not.