Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 7.3 (37.3)

Summary: Fear the devil's works, not the devil.

BothGreekEnglish

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:100

φοβήθητι δὲ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου, ὅτι πονηρά ἐστι. φοβούμενος οὖν τὸν κύριον οὐκ ἐργάσῃ αὐτά, ἀλλʼ ἀφέξῃ ἀπʼ αὐτῶν.

But fear the works of the devil, because they are evil. Fearing the Lord, then, you will not do them, but will abstain from them.

Source: Lake, LCL 25:100 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 70–137 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text: As printed in Lake, LCL 25. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation: Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 25, 1913); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare: Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Herm. Mand. 7.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/7/3/).

Plain text

Herm. Mand. 7.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/7/3/).