創世六日 第 7 章 第 2/2 段

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the petitions of your heart.

If you are a lover of wealth, you have spiritual riches: The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether; more to be desired than much gold and precious stone.

If you are given to enjoyment and pleasure, you have the oracles of God, which to him whose spiritual sense is sound are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

If I dismiss you and break up the assembly, some will run off to the dice;

there are oaths, and bitter quarrels, and the pangs of greed for money.

A demon stands by, kindling madness through the spotted dice-bones, and shifting the same money to either side, now lifting up this one with victory and casting dejection upon the other, then again showing that one exulting and this one put to shame.

What profit is there in fasting in body, while the soul is filled with countless evils? He who does not gamble, but spends his leisure otherwise—what vain things does he not utter? What absurd things does he not hear? For leisure, without the fear of God, is a teacher of wickedness to those who have nothing fitting to occupy them.

Perhaps, then, some profit will be found in what has been said;

but if not, at least the not-sinning is gained for you out of your being occupied here.

So that to detain you longer is to withdraw you longer from evils.

What has been said is sufficient for a fair-minded judge, if one looks not to the riches of creation, but to the weakness of our power, and to what suffices for the gladness of those who have assembled.

The earth has welcomed you with her own shoots;

the sea with its fish, the air with its birds.

The dry land is ready to show forth in return things of equal worth with these.

But let this be the measure of the morning feast, lest excessive satiety should make you duller toward the enjoyment of the evening's.

And may He who has filled all things with His own creation, and who has left in all of us clear memorials of His own wonders, fill your hearts with all spiritual gladness, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages.