Shepherd of Hermas 55

1And he says to me, “Do you see this shepherd?” “I do,” I say, “sir.”

2“Those sheep you saw not skipping but grazing in one place—these are the ones who have handed themselves over to luxuries and deceptions, yet they have not blasphemed the Lord at all. These, then, have been corrupted from the truth; in them there is hope of repentance, by which they can live. Corruption, then, has hope of a certain renewal, but death has eternal destruction.”

35. Again we went on a little, and he shows me a great shepherd, savage in appearance, wearing a white goatskin, and he had a bag on his shoulders, and a very hard staff with knots, and a great whip. He had a very harsh look, so that I was afraid of him—such was his look.

46. This shepherd, then, took over the sheep from the shepherd who was a young man—those that were living wastefully and self-indulgently, but not skipping—and he cast them into a certain steep, thorny place full of thistles, so that, because of the thorns and thistles, the sheep were unable to disentangle themselves, but [were entangled in the thorns and thistles; these, then,] being entangled, grazed among the thorns and thistles. They suffered greatly, being torn by him; he drove them here and there and gave them no rest, and those sheep were not at all steady.