These Egyptians gave me their unclean food and dressed me in their clothes. The blows of their rods caused me to become deaf and dumb and blind, until eventually I forgot who I was. Indeed, I came to believe myself to be one of them. I learned to speak their unclean speech, and my mind was clouded by it.
Yet,
had I not made myself like these Egyptians, walking and talking in their ways,
then they would have seen that I was not one of them, and they would have dealt
with me even more treacherously.
So I became proud and arrogant, and burdened with the cares of this life. And for that, I was subjected to toil. And I fell into despair, too, being wearied of toil, and having forgotten who I was. Yet in my despair I was still proud.
But Christ upon the Cross undoes the proud. I beheld Him who was crucified and who died, and I said, "Here an innocent man was killed, and forewent the life and pleasures of this world. How much more then ought I to have been killed, who am not innocent? How much more do I deserve nothing of this world?" All sin was at once condemned to death, and yet the sentence of death was annihilated at the same time. For I said, "Why then ought I to fear death or love the life and pleasures of this world?". So Satan was robbed of power over me. And Christ proved the utter defeat of death by rising from the dead, leading me out of slavery to freedom.
For before, I had been caught up in this world, Egypt, as slave to sin, under the yoke of its Pharaoh, and I was burdened by the cares of this life. But now Christ, as Moses, has parted the sea of death, and has led me out to His promised land—to eternal life and to the kingdom of heaven.
