2 Clement 2

1“Rejoice, you barren woman who never gave birth. Break out and cry aloud, you who were never in labor, for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the woman who has a husband.” When he said, “Rejoice, you barren woman who never gave birth,” he was speaking about us, for our church was barren before children were given to her. And when he said, “Cry aloud, you who were never in labor,” he meant this: Let us not grow weary, like women in labor, of offering our prayers to God with simplicity. Again, when he said, “For the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than those of the woman who has a husband,” he spoke this way because our people seemed desolate and abandoned by God. But now, having believed, we have become more numerous than those who seemed to have God. Again, another Scripture says, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” He means this: It is right to save those who are perishing. For this truly is a great and marvelous work: to establish not the things that are standing, but the things that are falling. So Christ also desired to save the things that were perishing. And he saved many, coming and calling us when we were already perishing.