6.4

I also want you to know, my children, how great is the sorrow I have for you, as I see that great confusion which has come upon us all and consider the great labor of all the saints and the groaning they continually utter to God for us. They see the labor of their own Creator and despise every wickedness, as well as the snares of the devil and his angels, who continually lie in wait for our destruction. Since their portion is to go to hell, they want to draw our striving along with them.

Truly, beloved in the Lord, I speak to you as to wise people, so that you may know all the dispensations our Creator has made for us, which visit us through open and hidden proclamations. We are called rational, yet we bear an irrational mind because we do not know the hidden cunning and manifold arts of the devil—what they are and how they may be recognized. When they discover that we are trying to know our confusion and seeking to understand how their operations work in us—and not only that we refuse to obey their evils or the suggestions they sow in our hearts, but also that as many of us as possible do not embrace their pursuits—they themselves know the forbearance of the Creator: that death is their lot on earth, while Gehenna has been prepared for them as an inheritance because of their negligence…