The Shepherd of Hermas

So then count yourselves blessed; but think that you have done a great deed, if any of you suffer for God’s sake. The Lord is giving you life, and you do not consider it; for your sins have weighed you down, and except you had suffered for the name of the Lord you would have died to God because of your sins.

I say this to you who are hesitating as to denial or confession. Confess that you have a Lord, lest you deny him and be delivered into prison.

If the heathen punish their servants, if one deny his lord, what think you will the Lord, who has power over all, do to you? Put away these thoughts from your heart that you may live for ever to God.

And from the twelfth mountain, the white one,[*](The twelfth mountain) are such believers as these: They are as innocent

Such then shall live without doubt in the kingdom of God, because by no act did they defile the commandments of God, but remained in innocence all the days of their lives in the same mind.

All of you, then, as many as shall continue, said he, and shall be as babes, with no wickedness, shall be more glorious than all those who have been mentioned before, for all babes are glorious before God, and are in the first place by him. Blessed then are you who put away evil from yourselves, and put on guiltlessness, for you shall be the first of all to live to God.