《太上灵宝天尊说禳灾度厄经》

At this time the Celestial Worthy was in the land of Chanli, gathered with myriads upon myriads of true immortals of the Great Dao (the Way), together with the various Celestial Worthies, heavenly dragons, and ghosts and spirits, receiving the restraints and charges I had entrusted to them.

If in the world good men or good women suddenly meet with all kinds of disasters and hardships—such as the calamities of the year and the afflictions of the month; the hardship of the roaming city and the red rat (a kind of baleful portent spoken of in the Jing [scripture]); the hardship of heaven’s net and earth’s snare; the hardship of a lifespan about to end; the hardship of illness clinging to the body; the hardship of falling into water and meeting danger; encounters with tigers, wolves, and venomous snakes; the hardships of water and fire, thieves, weapons and warfare, and childbirth; the disasters brought by mountains, forests, and trees, by the altars of soil and grain and the land, and by earth, stone, and bridges; or injury from poisons and curses—they should all repent and pray before the Jade Emperor Celestial Worthy and the true sages of the Great Dao, so that these calamities may be dissolved, their own disasters disperse one by one, and they no longer meet with obstruction.

The Celestial Worthy commanded the various celestial spirit-kings jointly to send down sacred power and the power of the Dao and, by the might and grace of this Jing, to guard and protect the disciples. After one receives, upholds, and recites this Jing, the disasters of Yang Nine and Hundred Six (the calamitous years spoken of by the ancients), the Three Declines and Nine Violent Misfortunes (all manner of decline and sudden disaster), the Eight Difficulties and the Five Sufferings, and other such hardships may be dissolved; what is sought can be obtained as wished; wherever one goes there is peace; in going out and coming in, in movement and in rest, one is ever blessed with good fortune; what one does brings benefit; and what one wishes proceeds in accord with one’s heart.

When the assembly heard this Jing, they were all filled with joy, believed and accepted it, and practiced in accordance with the text of the scripture.