Book of Thomas the Contender 6

1The Savior then continued: “Woe to you who are godless, who are without hope, expecting what will never happen! Woe to you whose hope is in the flesh, in the prison destined to perish! How long will you remain forgetful? And how long will you assume that imperishable things will also perish? Your hope is fixed on the world, and your god is this life! You are destroying yourselves!

2Woe to you because of the fire that scorches you from within, for it cannot be quenched! Woe to you because of the wheel that spins inside your minds! Woe to you in the grip of the scorching that dwells within you, for it will visibly consume your flesh and invisibly tear apart your souls, and it will prepare you to join your friends! Woe to you prisoners, for you are chained in caves!

3“You mock and smirk with insane laughter! You are unaware of your damnation, and you do not consider your condition, and [you] have failed to understand that you live in darkness and [death]! Instead, you are intoxicated with fire and [filled] with bitterness. Your mind is insane because of the [scorching that is inside] you, and the venom and attacks of your enemies are sweet to you! Gloom rose for you like light because you surrendered your freedom for slavery! You blackened your hearts and gave up your thoughts to foolishness, and you filled your thoughts with the fiery smoke inside you! And your light [was obscured] in the cloud [of . . .], and the clothes that cover you, you [. . .]. And [you] were captured by an empty [hope]. And whom did [you] believe? Do you [not understand that] all of [you] live among those who [. . .] you as though [you . . .].

4[] You immersed yourselves in the water of gloom! You acted according to your own urges! Woe to you who live in error, who neglect the light of the sun that judges the world and gazes down upon it, and that will encircle all things in order to enslave enemies. Nor do you perceive the moon, which by night and day gazes down, beholding the corpses from your slaughtering! Woe to you who love being close to women and (who love) unclean intercourse with them! Woe to you who are caught in the grip of your bodily powers, for they will torment you! Woe to you who are caught in the grip of the forces of evil demons! Woe to you who lure your limbs with fire!

5“Who will send a shower of cool dew upon you to quench the cloud of fire engulfing you together with your scorching? Who will make the sun shine upon you to dispel the gloom within you and to conceal the gloom and impure water? The sun and moon, together with the air, the wind, the earth, and the water, will grant you a fragrant scent, because if the sun does not shine upon these bodies, they will wither and perish, just like weeds and grass. If the sun shines upon them, they take over and strangle the grapevine. If, however, the grapevine takes over and shades all the weeds and other bushes growing beside them, and [spreads] and increases, it alone will receive the land where it grows and will dominate every place it has overshadowed. When it matures, it will control the entire land and produce abundantly for its master, and it will please him even more, because he will have avoided the great trouble of uprooting these plants. Instead, the grapevine itself got rid of them, even choking them, and they died and became as (dead) as the soil.”

6Jesus then continued and said: “Woe to you, because you did not accept the teaching, and those who [. . .] will work at preaching [. . .]. And [you] are running into [. . .] will drive [them] downward [. . .] by day you kill them [] so that they could rise from death.”