1 Clement 14

1It is right, then, and holy, brothers, for us to become obedient to God rather than to follow those who, in arrogance and disorder, are the instigators of hateful jealousy.

2For we will incur no ordinary harm, but rather great danger, if we recklessly hand ourselves over to the desires of men who fall into strife and factions, so as to estrange us from what is good.

3Let us be kind to one another according to the compassion and gentleness of the One who made us.

4For it is written: “The upright will inhabit the land, and the innocent will be left upon it; but those who act lawlessly will be destroyed from it.”

5And again he says: “I saw the ungodly highly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not there, and I sought his place, and I did not find it. Keep innocence and observe uprightness, because there is a remnant for a peaceable man.”