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^43104310    Literally, “to be found small and esteemed.” 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.^43114311    Literally, “His hope.”  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^43124312    I. adds οτενοχωρία (straits). 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^43134313    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. with their own ungodliness.^43144314    Prov. i. 22–33.…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.”