even if it should mount up to the very sceptres, and stand near those who wear the diadems, it is baser and more cowardly than all, and resembles a kind of tumult and disturbance, and a raging sea, even though it be clothed with countless power;
For even if it be in the utmost poverty, even if it be beside the very prison, it is more splendid than those who reign, and enjoys great security, and sits in calm and in an unruffled harbour, not only suffering nothing at all from the wicked, but even able in its silence to requite them, and to exact the extreme penalty of their wickedness.
For what could be more wretched than a man who lives in wickedness, when, besides being a slave to money, he is also gnawed by the good deeds of others, and reckons the good repute of others to be his own punishment, and exacts the penalty from himself, tearing his own conscience, straining his own mind, becoming his own executioner? Have you seen the surpassing power of virtue? Have you seen the weakness and wretchedness of vice? But it is not in this alone that his calamity stands, but in many others as well;
25:266
ὅπεροὖνκαὶαὐτὸςδηλῶνἐπήγαγε, λέγων·
他自己也正是為要說明這事，就接著補充說：
which very thing he himself also, making it plain, went on to add, saying:
For since the objects of his desire are of such a kind—fleeting and passing away—the desire itself imitates those things, being quenched and destroyed and having no root at all.
Therefore, that we may not suffer these things, let us flee this way and choose that other one, and let us walk unceasingly upon the road that is safe, that cannot be conquered, that is full of pleasure, that is filled with glory, that procures heaven for us, that grants us God's goodwill toward all things, that prepares us for the life of true wisdom, that possesses so many good things as no words could ever set forth;
25:272
ὧνγένοιτοπάνταςἡμᾶςἐπιτυχεῖνχάριτικαὶφιλανθρωπίᾳ
願我們眾人都能藉著我們主耶穌基督的恩典與慈愛，得著這一切。
which may it be granted us all to attain, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.