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,^41774177    Some translate, “in liberty.” 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,^41784178    Or, “of the ages.” the Most Holy,^41794179    I. ὁ δημιοῦργος τῶν αἰώνων καὶ ποτὴρ πανάγιος (the Creator Eternal and Father All-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^41804180    I. τὰ ἀγαθά (good things) added. 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,^41814181    I. πονηρίαν (wickedness). along with all covetousness,^41824182    I. omits πλεονεξία (covetousness). strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vain glory and ambition.^41834183    The reading is doubtful:  some have ἀφιλοξενίαν, “want of a hospitable spirit.”  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.^41844184    Rom. i. 32.  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^41854185    Literally, “didst run with.” him, and didst make thy portion with adulterers.  Thy mouth has abounded with wickedness, and 240thy tongue contrived^41864186    Literally, “did weave.” deceit.  Thou sittest, and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest^41874187    Or, “layest a snare for.” 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.^41884188    I. omit “σὺ δὲ ἐμίσησας...ὁ ῥυόμενος Ps. l. 17–22, and connects by ἐν τῶ τέλει (in the end).  The sacrifice of praise will glorify me, and a way is there by which I will show him the salvation of God.”^41894189    Ps. l. 16–23.  The render will observe how the Septuagint followed by Clement differs from the Hebrew.