During the New Kingdom, well-to-do Egyptians were buried with papyrus scrolls on which magical and religious texts were written that were to help the deceased make the crossing to the afterlife, which was viewed as more difficult in this era of insecurity than it had been earlier. Now known as the Book of the Dead, these texts varied but increasingly included a description of the god Osiris weighing the person’s heart to determine his or her fate. During this ritual, the deceased recited a standardized list of things he or she had not done during life, what modern scholars have called the “negative confession.” A scribe writing this list to place in the coffin would have simply replaced the “N” in the first sentence with the name of the deceased.

The Declaration of Innocence

To be said on reaching the Hall of the Two Truths so as to purge N of any sins committed and to see the face of every god:

Hail to you, great God, Lord of the Two Truths!

I have come to you, my Lord,

I was brought to see your beauty.…

I have not done crimes against people,

I have not mistreated cattle,

I have not sinned in the Place of Truth.

I have not known what should not be known,

I have not done any harm.

I did not begin a day by exacting more than my due,

My name did not reach the bark of the mighty ruler.

I have not blasphemed a god,

I have not robbed the poor.

I have not done what the god abhors,

I have not maligned a servant to his master.

I have not caused pain,

I have not caused tears.

I have not killed,

I have not ordered to kill,

I have not made anyone suffer.

I have not damaged the offerings in the temples,

I have not depleted the loaves of the gods,

I have not stolen the cakes of the dead [food left for the deceased].

I have not copulated nor defiled myself.

I have not increased nor reduced the measure,

I have not diminished the arura [arable land],

I have not cheated in the fields.

I have not added to the weight of the balance,

I have not falsified the plummet of the scales.

I have not taken milk from the mouth of children,

I have not deprived cattle of their pasture.

I have not snared birds in the reeds of the gods,

I have not caught fish in their ponds.

I have not held back water in its season,

I have not dammed a flowing stream,

I have not quenched a needed fire.

I have not neglected the days of meat offerings,

I have not detained cattle belonging to the god,

I have not stopped a god in his procession.

I am pure, I am pure, I am pure, I am pure!

Source: Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume II, The New Kingdom, by Miriam Lichtheim, pp. 124–126. © 2006 by the Regents of the University of California. Published by the University of California Press.

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