First “I Am” Speech

1. For I am the first and the last.

2. I am the honored and the scorned.

3. I am the whore and the holy.

4. I am the wife and the virgin.

5. I am [the mother] and the daughter.

6. I am the limbs of my mother. I am the barren one whose children are many.

7. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have taken no husband.

8. I am the midwife and she who bears not.

9. I am the comfort after my labor pains.

10. I am the bride and the bridegroom, and my husband gave birth to me.

11. I am the mother of my father and the sister of my husband, and he is my offspring.

12. I am the servant of him who possessed me. I am the ruler of my offspring, who, however, [gave birth to me] before the day of my birth.

13. And he is my offspring born [on] time, and my power is from him.

14. I am the staff of his power during his youth, [and] he is my rod when I am old, and whatever he wants will come to pass for me.

15. I am the silence that is incomprehensible and the thought whose remembrance is great.

16. I am the voice whose sound is manifold and the word whose appearances are many.

17. I am the utterance of my name.