The Dragon Stone

Quotation Source

These quotations are from the New English Bible Apocrypha. The Apocrypha are the books that were present in the Greek Bible, but have been removed in the modern Bible. This is due to them not being present in the Hebrew Bible. This translation was first published in 1970.

2Esdras 6:49-52

⁴⁹ Then you set apart two creatures: one you called Behemoth and the other Leviathan. ⁵⁰ You put them in seperate places, for the seventh part where the water was collected was not big enough to hold them both. ⁵¹ A part of the land which was made dry on the third day you gave to Behemoth as his territory, a country of a thousand hills. ⁵² To Leviathan you gave the seventh part, the water.

2Esdras 15:28-29

²⁸ How terrible the sight of what is coming from the east! ²⁹ Hordes of dragons from Arabia will sally forth with countless chariots, and from the first day of their advance their hissing will spread across the land, to fill all who hear them with fear and consternation.

2Esdras 15:31

³¹ But then the dragons will summon up their native fury, and will prove stronger.

(The following extract is unclear about what reptile or fire-breathing creature is being discussed. Included here as it sounds draconic.)

Wisdom of Solomon 11:15-19

¹⁵ In return for the insensate imagination of those wicked men, which deluded them into worshipping reptiles devoid of reason, and mere vermin, thou didst send upon them a swarm of creatures devoid of reason to chastise them, ¹⁶ and to teach them that the instruments of a man's sins are the instruments of his punishment. ¹⁷ For thy almighty hand, which created the world out of formless matter, was not without other resource: ¹⁸it could have let loose upon them a host of bears or ravening lions or unknown ferocious monsters newly created, either breathing out blasts of fire, or roaring and belching smoke, or flashing terrible sparks like lightning from their eyes,¹⁹ with the power not only to exterminate them by the wounds they inflicted, but by their mere appearance to kill them with fright.

(The 'it' they turn to look at is the bronze serpent of Numbers in the Bible)

Wisdom of Solomon 16:5-10

⁵ Even when fierce and furious snakes attacked thy people and the bites of writhing serpents were spreading death, thy anger did not continue to the bitter end; ⁶ their short trouble was sent them as a lesson, and they were given a symbol of salvation to remind them of the requirements of thy law. ⁷ For any man who turned towards it was saved, not by the thing he looked upon but by thee, the saviour of all. ⁸ In this way thou didst convince our enemies that thou art the deliverer from every evil. ⁹ Those other men died from the bite of locusts and flies, and no remedy was found to save their lives, because it was fitting for them to be chastised by such creatures. ¹⁰ But thy sons did not succumb to the fangs of snakes, however venomous, because thy mercy came to their aid and healed them.

Ecclesiasticus 12:13

¹³ Who sympathizes with a snake-chamer when he is bitten, or with a tamer of wild animals?

Ecclesiasticus 25:15-16

¹⁵ There is no venom worse than a snake's,
and no anger worse than an enemy's.

¹⁶ I would sooner share a home with a lion or a snake
than keep house with a spiteful wife.

Ecclesiasticus 39:29-30

²⁹ Fire and hail, famine and deadly disease,
all these were created for retribution;
³⁰ beasts of prey, scorpions and vipers,
and the avenging sword that destroys the wicked.

Ecclesiasticus 43:24-25

²⁴ Those who sail the sea tell stories of its dangers,
which astonish all who hear them;
²⁵ in it are strange and wonderful creatures,
all kinds of living things and huge sea-monsters.

(Dragon and snake are interchangable in this passage. In other versions of the Apocrypha this passage is commonly called 'Bel and the Dragon'.)

Daniel, Bel and the Snake 23-28

²³ Now there was a huge snake, which the Babylonians held to be divine. ²⁴ The king said to Daniel, 'You cannot say that this is not a living god; so worship him.' ²⁵ Daniel answered, 'I will worship the Lord my God, for he is a living God. ²⁶ But give me authority, your majesty, and without sword or staff I will kill the snake.' 'I give it you', said the king.

²⁷ So Daniel took pitch and fat and hair, boiled them together, and made them into cakes, which he put into the mouth of the snake. When the snake ate them, it burst. Then Daniel said, 'See what things you worship!'

²⁸ When the Babylonians heard of this they gathered in an angry crowd to oppose the king. 'The king has turned Jew!' they cried. 'He has pulled down Bel, killed the snake, and put the priests to the sword.'