“Hail, Osiris Kersher!  Thy name flourisheth, thy earthly body is stablished, thy spirit body germinateth, and thou art not repulsed either in heaven or on earth.  Thy face shineth before Ra, thy soul liveth before Amen, and thy earthly body is renewed before Osiris.  Thou breathest the breath of life for ever and ever.  Thy soul maketh offerings unto thee in the course of each day....  Thy flesh is collected on thy bones, and thy form is even as it was upon earth.  Thou takest drink into thy body, thou eatest with thy mouth, and thou receivest thy rations in company with the souls of the gods.  Anubis protecteth thee; he is thy protector, and thou art not turned away from the Gates of the Tuat.  Thoth, the most mighty god, the Lord of Khemenu (Hermopolis), cometh to thee, and he writeth the ‘Book of Breathings’ with his own fingers.  Then doth thy soul breathe for ever and ever, and thy form is renewed with life upon earth; thou art made divine with the souls of the gods, thy heart is the heart of Ra, and thy limbs are the limbs of the great god.  Amen is nigh unto thee to make thee to live again.  Upuat openeth a prosperous road for thee.  Thou seest with thine eyes, thou hearest with thine ears, thou speakest with thy mouth, thou walkest with thy legs.  Thy soul hath been made divine in the Tuat, so that it may change itself into any form it pleaseth.  Thou canst snuff at will the odours of the holy Acacia of Anu (An, or Heliopolis).  Thou wakest each day and seest the light of Ra; thou appearest upon the earth each day, and the ‘Book of Breathings’ of Thoth is thy protection, for through it dost thou draw thy breath each day, and through it do thine eyes behold the beams of the Sun-god Aten.  The Goddess of Truth vindicateth thee before Osiris, and her writings are upon thy tongue.  Ra vivifieth thy soul, the Soul of Shu is in thy nostrils.  Thou art even as Osiris, and ‘Osiris Khenti Amenti’ is thy name.  Thy body liveth in Tatu (Busiris), and thy soul liveth in heaven....  Thy odour is that of the holy gods in Amentet, and thy name is magnified like the names of the Spirits of heaven.  Thy soul liveth through the ‘Book of Breathings,’ and it is rejoined to thy body by the ‘Book of Breathings.’  These fine extracts are followed in the British Museum papyrus by the praises of Kersher by the gods, a prayer of Kersher himself for offerings, and an extract from the so-called Negative Confession, which has been already described.  The work is closed by an address to the gods, in which it is said that Kersher is sinless, that he feeds and lives upon Truth, that his deeds have satisfied the hearts of the gods, and that he has fed the hungry and given water to the thirsty and clothes to the naked.[2]

[Footnote 1:  The deceased is always supposed to be identified with Osiris.]

[Footnote 2:  A papyrus at Florence contains a copy of Part II. of The Book of Breathings.  The fundamental ideas are the same as those in Part I., but the forms in which they are expressed are different.  The deceased is made to address several gods by name, and to declare that he himself is those gods.  “I am Ra, I am Atem, I am Osiris, I am Horus, I am Thoth,” &c.]