Love the truth, and it will preserve you. Pay no
heed to the beauty of women, nor associate with, another man’s wife, nor
meddle with affairs of womankind, for the mind taking in the thought of
a woman’s nakedness, may suffer you not to sleep until you have wrought
the abominable thing. Therefore pay no heed to the beauty of women, nor
set your mind on their affairs, but walk in singleness of heart in the
fear of the Lord and expend labour on good works and on study until the
Lord gives you a wife, whom He will so that you suffer not. For a pit to
the soul is the sin of fornication, separating it from God, and bringing
it near to idols, because it deceives the mind and understanding, and
leads down young men into Hades before their time. For many have
fornication destroyed, because though a man be old or noble, or rich or
poor, he brings reproach upon himself with the sons of men and derision
with Satan, for if fornication over comes not your mind, neither can
Satan overcome you, for evil are many women and since they have no power
or strength over man, they use wiles by outward attractions, that they
may draw men to themselves and whom they cannot bewitch by outward
attractions, him they overcome by craft. Women are overcome by the
spirit of fornication more than men, and in their heart they plot
against men and by means of their adornment they deceive first their
minds, and by the glance of the eye instil the poison, and then through
the accomplished act they take them captive, for a woman cannot force a
man openly, but by a harlot’s bearing she beguiles him. Flee, therefore,
fornication and command your wives and your daughters, that they should
not adorn their heads and faces to deceive the mind, because every woman
who uses these wiles has been reserved for eternal punishment.
Beware, therefore, of fornication, and if you wish
to be pure in mind, guard your senses from every woman and command the
women likewise not to associate with men, that they also may be pure in
mind, for constant meetings between them, (men & women) even though the
ungodly deed be not wrought, are to them an irremediable disease, and to
us a destruction of Satan and an eternal reproach. For in fornication
there is neither understanding nor godliness, and all jealousy dwells in
the lust thereof, I adjure you by the God of heaven to do truth each one
unto his neighbour and to entertain love, each one for his brother.
Part 5:
Keep a Pure Heart
