Shepherd of Hermas 29

1“I am commanding you,” he says, “to guard chastity, and do not let a thought about another man’s wife, or about any fornication, or about any such evil likenesses, rise up upon your heart. For in doing this you commit a great sin. But if you remember your own wife always, you will never transgress.

2“For if this thought rises up upon your heart, you will transgress—and if other such evil things [do], you commit sin. For this thought is a great sin for a servant of God; and if anyone carries out this evil deed, he brings death upon himself. Look to yourself, then: keep away from this thought; for where modesty dwells, there lawlessness ought not to rise up upon the heart of a righteous man.”

3I say to him, “Sir, allow me to ask you a few things.” “Speak,” he says. “Sir,” I say, “if someone has a wife who is faithful in the Lord, and he finds her in some adultery, does the husband sin by living together with her?”

4“As long as he is ignorant,” he says, “he does not sin; but if the husband comes to know her sin, and the wife does not repent but persists in her fornication, and the husband lives together with her, he becomes guilty of her sin and a sharer in her adultery. "What then, sir," I say, "should the husband do, if the wife persists in this passion?" "Let him divorce her," he says, "and let the husband remain by himself; but if, after divorcing his wife, he marries another, he himself also commits adultery." "If then, sir," I say, "after the wife is divorced, she repents and wishes to return to her own husband, will she not be received?" "Indeed," he says, "if the husband does not receive her, he sins and brings a great sin upon himself; rather, the one who has sinned and is repenting must be received—but not repeatedly—for to the servants of God repentance is one. Because of repentance, then, the man ought not to marry. This rule is laid upon both woman and man.

5“Not only,” he says, “is it adultery if someone defiles his flesh, but whoever makes images as the nations do is committing adultery. Therefore, even in such works, if someone persists and does not repent, keep away from him and do not live together with him; otherwise you too are a sharer in his sin. For this reason it was commanded you to remain by yourselves, whether man or woman, for in cases like these there can be repentance.

6“I therefore,” he says, “do not give an occasion for this practice to be carried through in this way, but so that the one who has sinned may no longer sin. But with regard to his former sin, there is One who is able to give healing—for he is the One who has authority over all.”