Chapter LVII.—Let the Authors of Sedition Submit
Themselves.
Ye therefore, who laid the foundation of this sedition,
submit yourselves to the presbyters, and receive correction so as to
repent, bending the knees of your hearts. Learn to be subject,
laying aside the proud and arrogant self-confidence of your
tongue. For it is better for you that ye should occupy
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a humble but honourable place in the flock
of Christ, than that, being highly exalted, ye should be cast out from
the hope of His people.
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For thus
speaketh all-virtuous Wisdom: “Behold, I will bring forth
to you the words of my Spirit, and I will teach you my speech.
Since I called, and ye did not hear; I held forth my words, and ye
regarded not, but set at naught my counsels, and yielded not at my
reproofs; therefore I too will laugh at your destruction; yea, I will
rejoice when ruin cometh upon you, and when sudden confusion overtakes
you, when overturning presents itself like a tempest, or when
tribulation and oppression
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fall upon
you. For it shall come to pass, that when ye call upon me, I will
not hear you; the wicked shall seek me, and they shall not find
me. For they hated wisdom, and did not choose the fear of the
Lord; nor would they listen to my counsels, but despised my
reproofs. Wherefore they shall eat the fruits of their own way,
and they shall be filled
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with their own
ungodliness.
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…For, in
punishment for the wrongs which they practised upon babes, shall they
be slain, and inquiry will be death to the ungodly; but he that heareth
me shall rest in hope and be undisturbed by the fear of any
evil.”
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Literally, “to
be found small and esteemed.”
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Literally, “His
hope.”
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I. adds
οτενοχωρία
(straits).
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Here begins the
lacuna
in the old text referred to in the Introduction.
The newly discovered portion of the Epistle extends from this point to
the end of Chap. lxiii.
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Prov. i. 22–33
.