I entreat you with all my heart, detest talking back, quarreling, disobedience, self-will, boldness and every other passionate state, for all these drive away God’s love and bring bitterness into the soul instead.
Be sincere in everything you show and express: do not tell lies; speak the truth. Do not look at the spiritual illnesses of your brethren struggling together with you, for you will be greatly harmed. But rather, sympathetically overlook their illnesses for the sake of the Lord, so that He may also deem your own illnesses worthy of sympathy.
Never think anything great about yourselves, so that you are not abandoned by the grace of God which is guarding you, and a great trial befalls you.
subm. no. 6
From the book
Councels from the Holy mountain
Selected from the letters and homilies of Elder Efraim of Arizona
Selection of passages from the book by Silviu Podariu
