Shepherd of Hermas — Mandate 12 · Chapter 3

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Mandate 12.3.1 “I would like, sir,” I say, “to know in what ways I must serve good desire.” “Listen,” he says. “Practice righteousness and virtue, truth and fear of the Lord, faith and gentleness, and all good things resembling these. By doing these things you will be a well-pleasing servant of God and live to Him. And everyone who serves good desire will live to God.”

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Mandate 12.3.2 So he finished the twelve commandments and says to me, “You have these commandments. Walk in them, and encourage those who hear, so that their repentance may be pure for the remaining days of their life.

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Mandate 12.3.3 “Fulfill diligently this service that I give you, and you will accomplish much. For you will find favor among those who are going to repent, and they will be persuaded by your words. For I will be with you and compel them to be persuaded by you.”

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Mandate 12.3.4 I say to him, “Sir, these commandments are great and good and glorious, able to gladden the heart of a person who can keep them. But I do not know whether these commandments can be kept by a person, because they are very hard.”

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Mandate 12.3.5 He answers me, saying, “If you set before yourself that they can be kept, you will keep them easily, and they will not be hard. But if the thought has already arisen in your heart that they cannot be kept by a person, you will not keep them.

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Mandate 12.3.6 “Now I tell you: if you do not keep them but disregard them, you will have no salvation, nor will your children or your household, since you have already decided for yourself that these commandments cannot be kept by a person.”