The Two Shepherds

I was sitting in my house, praising the Lord for everything I had seen, and turning the commands over in my mind — how good they are, and powerful, and cheerful, and glorious, and able to save a person’s soul. I said to myself, “I will be blessed if I walk in these commands, and anyone who walks in them will be blessed.” While I was saying this to myself, I suddenly see him sitting down beside me, and this is what he says: “Why are you double-minded about the commands I gave you? They are good. Do not be double-minded at all; put on faith in the Lord and you will walk in them, for I myself will make you strong in them. “These commands are good for people who mean to repent. If they do not walk in them, their repentance is pointless. So you who are repenting: throw off the wickedness of this present age, which wears you out. Put on every virtue of righteousness, and you will be able to keep these commands and add nothing more to your sins. Walk, then, in these commands of mine, and you will live to God. All of this has been spoken to you by me.” [a]

And after he had said all this to me, he says, “Let’s go out to the country, and I will show you the shepherds of the sheep.” “Let’s go, sir,” I say. And we came to a plain, and he shows me a shepherd, a young man, dressed in a suit of clothes the color of saffron. He was pasturing a great many sheep, and these sheep looked pampered and thoroughly spoiled, and they were cheerful, skipping here and there. The shepherd himself was thoroughly cheerful over his flock, and his face was full of cheer as he ran about among the sheep.

And he says to me, “Do you see this shepherd?” “I see him, sir,” I say. “This,” he says, “is the angel of indulgence and deceit. He wears out the souls of God’s servants and turns them away from the truth, deceiving them with evil cravings, and in those cravings they are destroyed. For they forget the commands of the living God and walk in deceits and empty indulgences, and they are destroyed by this angel — some to death, some to ruin.” “Sir,” I say to him, “I do not know what ‘to death’ means and what ‘to ruin’ means.” “Listen,” he says. “The sheep you saw cheerful and skipping about are the ones who have torn themselves away from God for good and handed themselves over to the cravings of this present age. Among them there is no repentance that leads to life, because they have added to their sins and have blasphemed the name of God. Such people — death is theirs. “And the sheep you saw not skipping about, but grazing in one place, are the ones who have handed themselves over to indulgences and deceits, but have not blasphemed the Lord at all. These have been ruined away from the truth. Among them there is hope of repentance, and by it they can live. Ruin, then, has hope of some kind of renewal, but death has everlasting destruction.” [e]

I went on a little farther, and he shows me a big shepherd, wild-looking, with a white goatskin thrown around him, a satchel on his shoulders, a very hard staff with the knots still on it, and a great whip. And he had such a bitter look that I was afraid of him — that is how bitter his look was. This shepherd was taking the sheep over from the young shepherd — the spoiled and pampered ones that were not skipping about — and he threw them into a steep place full of thorns and briers, so that they could not untangle themselves from the thorns and briers but were caught fast in them. So there they grazed, tangled up, and they were utterly miserable, beaten by him; and he drove them here and there and gave them no rest, and those sheep had no peace at all.

So when I saw them whipped like that and miserable, I grieved for them, because they were being tormented so and had no relief at all. I say to the shepherd who was talking with me, “Sir, who is this shepherd? He is so heartless and harsh, with no pity at all for these sheep.” “This,” he says, “is the angel of punishment. He is one of the righteous angels, and he is set over punishment. So he takes the people who wander away from God and who have walked in the cravings and deceits of this present age, and he punishes them as they deserve, with terrible and varied punishments.” “I would like to know, sir,” I say, “what these varied punishments are like.” “Listen,” he says, “to the various torments and punishments. The torments belong to this life. Some are punished with losses, some with going without, some with all kinds of illness, some with total upheaval, some by being insulted by people not worth it, and by suffering in many other dealings. “Many of them, unsettled in their plans, take on a great deal, and nothing at all goes forward for them. They say they are not doing well in what they undertake, and it never comes up into their heart that they have done evil things; instead they blame the Lord. “So when they have been squeezed by every kind of trouble, then they are handed over to me for good discipline, and they are made strong in faith in the Lord, and for the rest of the days of their life they serve the Lord with a clean heart. And if they repent, then the evil things they have done come up into their heart, and then they praise God, saying that he is a just judge and that each of them suffered justly, according to what he had done. From then on they serve the Lord with a clean heart, and they do well in everything they undertake, receiving from the Lord whatever they ask. And then they praise the Lord because they were handed over to me, and they no longer suffer any evil at all.” [h]

I say to him, “Sir, explain this to me as well.” “What is it you want to know?” he says. “Whether, sir,” I say, “the people who indulge themselves and are deceived are tormented for the same length of time that they indulged themselves and were deceived.” “They are tormented for the same length of time,” he says to me. “Then they are tormented very little, sir,” I say. “People who indulge themselves like that and forget God ought to be tormented seven times over.” “You are a fool,” he says to me, “and you do not understand the force of the torment.” “If I understood it, sir,” I say, “I would not have asked you to explain it to me.” “Listen,” he says, “to the force of both. The time of indulgence and deceit is one hour; but the hour of torment has the force of thirty days. So if a man indulges himself and is deceived for one day, and is tormented for one day, the day of torment has the force of a whole year. For as many days as a man indulges himself, that many years he is tormented. So you see,” he says, “that the time of indulgence and deceit is very short, but the time of punishment and torment is long.” [k]

“Sir,” I say, “I still do not understand at all about the time of deceit and indulgence and torment. Explain it to me more clearly.” He answered me and said, “Your foolishness sticks to you, and you do not want to clean your heart and serve God. Watch out,” he says, “that the time is not filled up and you are found a fool. Listen now,” he says, “since you want to, so that you may understand these things. “The man who indulges himself and is deceived for one day, doing whatever he likes, is clothed in a great deal of foolishness and does not understand what he is doing; by the next day he has forgotten what he did the day before. Indulgence and deceit have no memories, because of the foolishness they are clothed in. But when punishment and torment stick to a man for one day, he is punished and tormented for a year, because punishment and torment have long memories. “So, tormented and punished a whole year, he finally remembers his indulgence and deceit, and he knows that it is on their account that he is suffering these evils. Every man who indulges himself and is deceived is tormented this way, because though they had life they handed themselves over to death.” [m]

“What kinds of indulgence, sir,” I say, “are harmful?” “Every act a man does with enjoyment is an indulgence to him,” he says. “The quick-tempered man, giving his own passion what it takes to satisfy it, is indulging himself. So is the adulterer, and the drunk, and the slanderer, and the liar, and the greedy man, and the swindler, and anyone who does things like these: he gives his own disease what it takes to satisfy it, and so he indulges himself in what he does. All these indulgences are harmful to God’s servants. It is on account of these deceits, then, that the people who are punished and tormented suffer. “But there are also indulgences that save people. Many who do good indulge themselves, carried along by their own pleasure. That indulgence is good for God’s servants and gains life for such a man. But the harmful indulgences I have listed gain them torments and punishments; and if they keep at them and do not repent, they gain death for themselves.”