(see Exodus 2:11-21)

It is certain, O Lord, that murder is punished by your law, for you have said, you shall not kill. Yet I once killed a man for no other reason than my own anger. I know now that it was a sin for me to do so, but at that time, I did not know you, and you had not yet spoken to me from the burning bush, telling me to bring your people out of Egypt. When I saw the Egyptian official beating my kinsman, I was enraged. I did not know that my people had to suffer in order that you may show these signs of yours, and that we may tell our children and grandchildren how you have made fools of the Egyptians, so they would know you are Lord. I did not know that the enslavement of the Hebrews was a necessary part of the plan you have for us. When I killed the Egyptian out of vengeful wrath that day, I had in my mind your words to Noah: Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed. I mistakenly believed that by killing him, I was doing what you commanded, and exacting a just punishment for his treatment of my fellow Hebrew. For the Egyptian had indeed drawn the blood of the man he was beating, and had injured him greatly.

I did not understand that you had meant your words to be taken all together, rather than one verse at a time. The full meaning of those words depended on what you said before, that you would require a reckoning for human life. The Egyptian had not killed the man he was beating, so it was not your will that his own blood should be shed. I was the only one who committed murder that day, so I was the only one who truly deserved death. Though I would not have been able to explain why I felt this way, I knew even at the time that I had overstepped the bounds of your justice. That is why I made sure no one was around, and then hid the body in the sand, ashamed of what I had done. But it was not part of your plan that my crime should remain a secret, so you had placed another Hebrew out of my sight to witness my actions. When this Hebrew let me know that he had seen my crime, I was afraid, but I did not yet come to the decision to flee from Egypt. Then, when the Pharaoh heard of what I had done, he sought to kill me. Fearing for my own life, though I surely deserved death, I then decided to flee to the land of Midian. It was by your grace alone that I succeeded in my escape.

Looking back on myself as I was before knowing you, O God, I remember that I believed my own luck and intelligence to be the reason for my survival. I considered myself clever indeed for managing to find refuge among the Midianites simply by helping Reuel’s daughters water their flock. I now know that if you had not had greater plans for my future, you would surely have allowed the Pharaoh’s men to arrest me and kill me for my crime. Men always think themselves clever and intelligent, but those traits we get from you, and without your aid, they amount to nothing at all. I am forever in your debt for sparing me and making me lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, and I would be forever in your debt even if I had not escaped punishment. For it is you who gave me life, and it is only in you that anything has any value at all. If it were not for you, my soul never would have seen the light of day.

Why do I tell you these things, O God? You know all and see all, so you are aware of the things in my heart before they even begin to appear to my conscious mind. Perhaps I am not writing to you, then, but rather to my mortal and ignorant brothers. I need to confess my sins in writing so that any man who reads my confessions can see that even a person such as myself is of no consequence without your divine power on his side. Many think of me as one who gave laws to my people, but I do not deserve that recognition. It was only you who acted, for you are the only one powerful enough to act on your own. I was merely the vessel through which you gave your own laws to your own chosen people.

In trying to mimic St. Augustine, I focused on three main aspects of his narration. First, I of course used a first-person narrative, along with the impression of jumping around between ideas that is a major part of any stream-of-consciousness writing. Second, I tried to quote scripture whenever appropriate. I was, of course, limited by what scripture Moses would have known, but I figured anything in Genesis and Exodus would be fine. (There are certain other places in this confession where quotations would be appropriate, but I couldn’t find anything that worked from either of those books.) Finally, I had Moses praise God whenever it didn’t interrupt the flow of the narrative. In addition, I had him repeatedly emphasize the fact that God acts through people, rather than people acting completely on their own. I think that these three things are both the most important characteristics of Augustine’s style, and also the most easily mimicked. (It seemed like other characteristics may have been more the result of the translator’s own influence than of Augustine’s style.)