Hail to you gods…
On that day of the great reckoning.
Behold me, I have come to you,
Without sin, without guilt, without evil,
Without a witness against me,
Without one whom I have wronged….
Rescue me, protect me,
Do not accuse me before the great god!
I am one pure of mouth, pure of hands.

This passage resembles an ancient Egyptian funerary declaration addressed to the gods in the afterlife, closely related to the “Negative Confession” (also called the “Declaration of Innocence”) recited by the deceased during judgment. In Egyptian mortuary belief, the dead person appeared in the divine tribunal on the “day of reckoning,” seeking vindication and safe passage beyond death. Such texts circulated in multiple versions across centuries, appearing in tomb inscriptions and, most famously, in manuscripts commonly grouped under the modern label “The Book of the Dead,” where the speaker asserts moral purity and asks not to be accused before the great god who presides over judgment.

The speaker’s repeated claims—“without sin…without guilt…without evil”—function less as personal autobiography than as a ritualized legal defense in a cosmic court. The lines dramatize the Egyptian ideal that survival after death depends on moral order (ma’at): one must be able to stand before divine authority without credible accusation of wrongdoing. The plea “Rescue me, protect me” underscores that innocence is not merely asserted but must be recognized by the gods. “Pure of mouth, pure of hands” links speech and action, suggesting integrity in both word and deed as the basis for acquittal and continued existence in the afterlife.