When I had prayed in my house and sat down on the bed, a man entered, glorious in appearance, in the dress of a shepherd, wrapped in a white goatskin, with a bag on his shoulders and a staff in his hand. And he greeted me, and I greeted him in return.
I thought he was present to tempt me, and I said to him: Who then are you? For I, I said, know to whom I was handed over. He said to me: Do you not recognize me? No, I said. I, he said, am the shepherd to whom you were handed over.
While he was still speaking his form was changed, and I recognized him, that he was the one to whom I had been handed over; and immediately I was confounded and fear seized me, and I was utterly crushed with grief, because I had answered him so wickedly and senselessly.
But answering me he said: Do not be confounded, but be strengthened in my commandments, which I am about to command you. For I was sent, he said, to show you again all the things you saw before, the very chief points which are profitable to you. First of all, write my commandments and the parables; the other things you shall write as I shall show you. For this reason, he said, I command you to write first the commandments and parables, so that you may read them readily and be able to keep them.
If, then, having heard them, you keep them and walk in them and work them with a pure heart, you shall receive from the Lord whatever he promised you; but if, having heard them, you do not repent, but still add to your sins, you shall receive from the Lord the opposite. All these things the shepherd, the angel of repentance, commanded me to write thus.