The Angel’s Last Charge

After I had finished writing this book, the messenger who had handed me over to the Shepherd came into the house where I was. He sat down on the couch, and the Shepherd stood at his right. Then he called me and said to me, “I have handed you and your household over to this Shepherd, so that he can keep you safe.” “Yes, sir,” I said. [a]

“So if you want to be kept safe,” he said, “from every harassment and every cruelty, and to have success in every good work and word, and every virtue of righteousness, then live by his commands — the ones I gave you — and you will be able to master every kind of wickedness. For if you keep his commands, every craving and every pleasure of this age will be under you, and success will follow you in every good undertaking. Take his good sense and his restraint into yourself, and tell everyone that he is held in great honor and dignity with the Lord, that he is a governor of great authority, powerful in his office. To him alone in all the world has authority over repentance been given. Does he seem powerful to you? And yet all of you look down on his good sense and on the consideration he shows you.”

“Ask him yourself, sir,” I said, “whether I have done anything out of line since he came into my house, or anything that has offended him.” “I know for myself that you have done nothing out of line and will not,” he answered. “That is why I am saying this to you — so that you will keep on. He gave a good report of you to me. Now you are to say these words to the rest, so that those who have repented, or are going to repent, may think as you do; then he will report well of them to me, and I to the Lord.” [g]

“Sir,” I said, “I tell every person the great deeds of the Lord. And I hope that all who have sinned before this will gladly repent when they hear these words, and get their life back.” “Then stay in this service and see it through. Whoever carries out his commands will have life, and he himself has great honor with the Lord. But those who do not keep his commands flee from their own life and set themselves against him. They do not follow his commands; they hand themselves over to death, and every one of them becomes guilty of his own blood. But I am telling you to serve these commands, and you will have a cure for your sins.”

“I have also sent you these virgins, to live with you, for I saw that they were friendly toward you. So you will have them as your helpers, and you will be the better able to keep his commands; it is not possible for these commands to be kept without these virgins. And I see that they are glad to be with you. But I will give them orders of my own not to leave your house at all. “Only keep your house clean, for they will gladly live in a clean house. They are clean themselves, and chaste and hard-working, and they all have favor with the Lord. So if they find your house clean, they will stay with you; but if even a little filth gets into it, they will leave your house at once. These virgins have no love at all for filth of any kind.” [j]

“I hope, sir,” I said to him, “that I will please them, so that they will always be glad to live in my house. And just as the one you handed me over to has no complaint against me, neither will they.” He said to the Shepherd, “I know that this servant of God wants to live, and that he will keep these commands and will settle the virgins in cleanness.” When he had said this he handed me over to the Shepherd again, and he called the virgins and said to them, “Since I see that you are glad to live in this man’s house, I commend him and his house to you: do not leave it at all.” And they were glad to hear these words.

Then he said to me, “Take up this service like a man. Tell every person the great deeds of the Lord, and you will have favor in this service. Whoever walks in these commands will live and will be happy in his life; whoever neglects them will not live, and will be unhappy in his life. Tell everyone who is able to do right not to stop; doing good works is useful to them. And I say that every person ought to be pulled out of hardship. A man who is in want, and who suffers hardship in his daily life, is in great torment and need. So whoever rescues a soul like that from need gains great joy for himself. A man worn down by that kind of hardship is racked with the same torment as a man in chains. Many people, when they cannot bear troubles like these any longer, bring death on themselves. So anyone who knows of a trouble like that in a man’s life and does not rescue him commits a great sin, and becomes guilty of his blood. [l]

“So do good works, all of you who have received from the Lord, or else, while you are slow about it, the building of the tower will be finished. It was for your sake that the work of building it was put on hold. Unless you hurry and do right, the tower will be finished and you will be shut out.”

After he had spoken with me he got up from the couch and went away, taking the Shepherd and the virgins with him. But he told me that he would send the Shepherd and the virgins back to my house.