For if you are patient, the Holy Spirit that dwells in you shall be pure, not darkened by another evil spirit, but dwelling in a spacious place it shall rejoice and be glad with the vessel in which it dwells, and shall serve God with much cheerfulness, having prosperity within itself.
But if some irascibility comes in, immediately the Holy Spirit, being delicate, is straitened, not having a clean place, and seeks to depart from the place; for it is choked by the evil spirit, not having room to serve the Lord as it wishes, being defiled by the irascibility. For in patience the Lord dwells, but in irascibility the devil.
For if you take a very little wormwood and pour it into a jar of honey, is not all the honey spoiled, and so much honey ruined by the tiniest bit of wormwood? It destroys the sweetness of the honey, and it no longer has the same favor with the master, because it has been embittered and has lost its usefulness. But if the wormwood is not put into the honey, the honey is found sweet and becomes useful to its master.
You see that patience is sweeter than honey and is useful to the Lord, and he dwells in it. But irascibility is bitter and useless. If, then, irascibility is mixed with patience, the patience is defiled and its intercession is no longer useful to God.
I should like, I said, lord, to know the working of irascibility, that I may guard myself against it. Indeed, he said, if you and your household do not guard against it, you have lost all your hope. But guard against it; for I am with you. And all will abstain from it, as many as repent with all their heart; for I will be with them and will preserve them; for they were all justified by the most reverend angel.
Hear now, he said, the working of irascibility, how evil it is, and how it overturns the servants of God by its own working, and how it leads them astray from righteousness. It does not lead astray those who are full in the faith, nor is it able to work upon them, because my power is with them; but it leads astray those who are empty and double-minded.
When it sees such men in good standing, it slips itself into the heart of that man, and out of nothing the man or woman becomes embittered over worldly affairs, or over food, or some pettiness, or over some friend, or over giving or receiving, or over such foolish matters; for all these things are foolish and empty and senseless and unprofitable to the servants of God.
But patience is great and strong and powerful and robust, flourishing in great breadth, cheerful, exultant, free from care, glorifying the Lord at all times, having nothing bitter in itself, remaining always meek and quiet. This patience, then, dwells with those who have the faith entire.
But irascibility is first of all foolish, fickle, and senseless. Then from senselessness comes bitterness, and from bitterness wrath, and from wrath anger, and from anger rage; then this rage, compounded of so many evils, becomes a great and incurable sin.
The delicate spirit, then, not being accustomed to dwell with an evil spirit nor with hardness, departs from such a man and seeks to dwell with meekness and quietness.
Then, when it departs from that man in whom it dwells, that man becomes empty of the righteous spirit, and being henceforth filled with the evil spirits he is unstable in his every act, dragged here and there by the evil spirits, and is wholly blinded from the good understanding. So, then, it happens to all the irascible.
Keep away, then, from irascibility, that most evil spirit; put on patience and resist irascibility and bitterness, and you shall be found together with the reverence that is loved by the Lord. Take heed, then, that you never neglect this commandment; for if you master this commandment, you shall be able to keep also the other commandments which I am about to command you. Be strong in them and empowered, and let all be empowered, as many as wish to walk in them.