The Shepherd of Hermas
Hermas
Hermas. The Apostolic Fathers with an English translation by Kirsopp Lake. In Two Volumes. Vol. II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1913
If then you have fields and dwellings, and many other possessions, when you are cast out by him, what will you do with your land and house, and all the other things which you have prepared for yourself? For the lord of this country justly says to you, Either use my law or go out from my country.
What then are you going to do, seeing that you have a law in your own city? Will you because of your fields and other possessions altogether deny your law, and walk in the law of
this city? Take heed that it be not unprofitable to deny your law, for if you wish to return back to your city, you will not be received, because you have denied the law of your city, and you will be excluded from it.Take heed, then, make no further preparations for yourself beyond a sufficient competence for yourself, as though you were living in a foreign country, and be ready in order that, whenever the master of this city wishes to expel you for resisting his law, you may go out from his city, and depart to your own city, and joyfully follow your own law suffering no harm.[*](ἀνυβρίστως is either active or passive: it may qualify ἀγαλλιώμενος, in decorous joy , joy unmixed with ὕβρις.)
Take heed, then, you who serve the Lord and have him in your heart. Do the deeds of God, remembering his commandments, and the promises which he made, and believe him that he will perform them if his commandments be observed.