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¹ you breathe slaughter and revenge for what you cannot obtain. ² you quarrel and go to war, but without success, because you don't petition for it: and if you did, ³ you would not obtain it, because you wickedly request to have your passions gratified. ⁴ Degenerate race, don't you know that friendship with vice is hostility against heaven. he that is a friend to the vicious world, is an enemy to God. ⁵ or do you imagine that passage of scripture to be insignificant, "does the spirit that dwells in you, incite you to vice?" ⁶ on the contrary, he heaps his favours upon you. wherefore 'tis said, "God defeats the proud, but is gracious to the humble." ⁷ Surrender therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ address your selves to God, and you will find him present with you: cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, you that are diffident. ⁹ be afflicted, be mournful, and weep: let your mirth be converted to sadness, and your joy to vexation. ¹⁰ humble your selves before the Lord, and he will raise you up.

¹¹ Don't, my brethren, treat one another with detraction. he that reflects upon his brother, and censures his brother, reflects upon the law, and censures the law: if you censure the law, instead of obeying it, you set up for a judge. ¹² there is but one legislator, and judge, he that has the power of life and death: who art thou, to pass sentence upon another? ¹³ As for you, who affirm, "to-day, or, to-morrow we will go to such a city, we will stay there a whole year, there we will traffic, and find our account." ¹⁴ how do you know, what will happen to-morrow? for, "what is your life?" a vapour that just appears, and then vanishes. ¹⁵ your language ought to be this, "if the Lord pleases to give us life, we shall do this, or that." ¹⁶ you triumph in your vain projects, but your presumption is vicious. ¹⁷ he then that knows what is virtuous, and does not practise it, is a criminal.