Chapter XXXV.—Immense is this...

Chapter XXXV.—Immense is this reward. How shall we obtain it?

How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in perfect confidence, ¹⁴⁵ faith in assurance, self-control in holiness! And all these fall under the cognizance of our understandings [now]; what then shall those things be which are prepared for such as wait for Him? The Creator and Father of all worlds, ¹⁴⁶ the Most Holy, alone knows their amount and their beauty. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts. But how, beloved, shall this be done? If our understanding be fixed by faith towards God; if we earnestly seek the things which are pleasing and acceptable to Him; if we do the things which are in harmony with His blameless will; and if we follow the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and iniquity, along with all covetousness, strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vainglory and ambition. ¹⁴⁷ For they that do such things are hateful to God; and not only they that do them, but also those that take pleasure in them that do them. ¹⁴⁸ For the Scripture saith, “But to the sinner God said, Wherefore dost thou declare my statutes, and take my covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst with ¹⁴⁹ him, and didst make thy portion with adulterers. Thy mouth has abounded with wickedness, and thy tongue contrived ¹⁵⁰ deceit. Thou sittest, and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest ¹⁵¹ thine own mother’s son. These things thou hast done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest, wicked one, that I should be like to thyself. But I will reprove thee, and set thyself before thee. Consider now these things, ye that forget God, lest He tear you in pieces, like a lion, and there be none to deliver. The sacrifice of praise will glorify Me, and a way is there by which I will show him the salvation of God.” ¹⁵²

Footnotes

14:145

Some translate, “in liberty.”

14:146

Or, “of the ages.”

14:147

The reading is doubtful: some have ἀφιλοξενίαν, “want of a hospitable spirit.” [So Jacobson.]

14:148

Rom. i. 32.

14:149

Literally, “didst run with.”

14:150

Literally, “didst weave.”

14:151

Or, “layest a snare for.”

14:152

Ps. l. 16-23. The reader will observe how the Septuagint followed by Clement differs from the Hebrew.