7) The Lord says: "Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin" (John 8:34). He who commits fornication is a slave of fornication; he who is drunk and overeaten is a slave of the belly, his god is the belly (Phil. 3:19). He who loves silver and gold is a slave of wealth, serving mammon (Matt. 6:24). Think the same about other passions. For whoever is overcome by someone is his servant (2 Peter 2:19). What hard and abominable work it is! More grievous and vile than to serve man, for it is better for every man, and for the tormentor himself, as a creature of God, to serve than to serve sin and sin to the devil. Oh, if only the poor sinner could see this work! He would admit that he is poorer than captives, convicts, imprisoned, chained, and other poor and bodily suffering people. But he is all the more poor because he does not understand his poverty. For passion blinds the rational eye.

8) The Apostle says: Whoever commits sin is of the devil, because the devil sinned first; and he calls sinners the children of the devil (1 John 3:8, 10). And the Lord said to the wicked Jews, "Your father is the devil; and you want to fulfill the lusts of your father (John 8:44). It is very miserable and frightening to be the son of the devil. But sin, the evil and devilish seed, leads man to such a terrible calamity. For the sinner who commits sin and does not want to repent, depicts that prince of darkness, as the son of his father, by his morals, and by his very deeds shows that he is of that filthy father, for his evil seed produces evil fruits, that is, sins. By the fruit the seed is known, and as the seed is, so is its fruit. The devil resists and does not submit to God – and the unrepentant sinner remains in the same disobedience. Take heed to this, everyone, and consider whose son you are, even though you bear the name of Christ upon you. True and true is the Apostle's word: Whoever commits sin is of the devil. Every tree is known by its fruit, says the Lord (Luke 6:44).

9) Sin, since, as it is said, separates from God, Who alone has life, or moreover, He Himself is the Source of life, deprives the separated soul of life and thus mortifies it. Such a person is both alive and dead: alive in body, and dead in soul. Thus our forefathers in Paradise, on the day in which they ate of the forbidden tree and sinned, died, according to the word of the Lord: "In the day that ye eat of it, ye shall surely die" (Gen. 2:17). Thus it is said of the prodigal son, who was separated from his father, but was converted again through repentance: "My son was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found" (Luke 15:24, 32).

It is not about bodily death that is spoken of here, because even in the separation from his father he was alive in body, as the circumstances of the parable show, but of spiritual death, from which he came to life, when he returned from error to his father through repentance. For this parable depicts a sinner who has been separated from God his Father, but through true repentance again turns to Him, who is dead in soul as long as he is separated from God. For he who has been separated from life must be dead. As he who has withdrawn from the light must be in darkness, so he who has withdrawn from life must be in the shadow of death. For where there is no light, there is certainly darkness; and where there is no life, there is certainly death. God is the living and life-giving light; therefore, in darkness and death dwells the one who is separated from Him. To such a dead man the word of God says: "Rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light" (Ephesians 5:14).

10) An irritated conscience torments a person with sin, and this torment is so severe that it often leads to despair, as happened to Cain the fratricide (Gen. 4) and Judas, the betrayer of the Lord (Matt. 27:5). As long as sin is committed, its evil is not known; but when the conscience awakens after the Fall, then the sinner will know how bitter sin is. As a drunken man, as long as he drinks and is drunk, does not feel his own harm; and when he oversleeps, then he will feel how harmful drunkenness is, so the sinner, as long as he remains in sinful drunkenness, does not feel sinful harm; but when he wakes up from that drunkenness, then he will know what a great, grievous and painful evil sin is.

Then his conscience will awaken and torment him more than any tormentor, and, like a worm gnaws at a tree, gnaws and devours his soul inside; then sorrow, fear, and terror of God's wrath and judgment, hell and eternal torment arise in him; then thoughts, like waves, strike the poor soul: "There is no salvation for thee in thy God" (Psalm 3:3). Wherever the sinner is, everywhere this tormentor is always with him, everywhere torments and devours him; disturbs during the day, disturbs and takes away sleep at night; he falls asleep a little, and then he frightens him; when he wakes up from his sleep, his evil conscience will awaken. With this misfortune the day begins and spends, the night begins and spends, and so it can never be freed from that calamity, because it always has this evil within itself.

Oh, evil, painful evil – evil conscience! Oh, the grave evil is the sin that troubles our conscience so much! It is better to have a wounded body than a conscience wounded by sins. It is better to endure the beating of the body than the beating of conscience. It is better to accept all sorts of external troubles than to have this one trouble internally. If in this age, where we do not see every sin in the conscience – for who can understand the fall of sin (Psalm 18:38) – so grievously does the conscience torment for sin; how heavy and unbearable will this torment be in the future, where all sins will be revealed and exposed, and the poor soul will feel all the wrath of God upon itself, and in endless despair, without God's mercy, it will forever remain endless!

But whoever does not feel the conviction and torment of conscience after committing a sin has lost the last hope of salvation, and this is a sign that he does not consider any sin to be a sin: it only seems that it is impossible for it to be. For this witness is faithful: no matter how you console and soften him, he does not cease to denounce, rebuke and cry out; always seeks judgment on the sinner. Both the written law of God and this natural law, although darkened in the sinner, always convicts sin and means God's judgment to the sinner. The law of God and conscience come together, and what the law of God says on the charter is the conscience within. The law of God says: "Thou shalt not steal," and so does thy conscience tell thee. From whence it happens that even the greatest lawless people seek a hidden place to do lawless deeds. For no one wants to sin openly and conceals the sin committed in every possible way. This comes from nothing else but conscience, which convicts the sinner that he does evil, and makes shame in him.

11) For sin, hell, hell and eternal torment are prepared. What a great and terrible misfortune, in the first place, to be deprived forever of God's mercy and His sweetest sight, with which all the holy angels and holy people will forever be satisfied without satiety; to be alienated and rejected from this blessed cathedral and to fall into the most painful eternal state, to drink the cup with the devil and his evil angels without end of God's wrath, to suffer in that flame that devours, but does not kill (Matt. 13:42; 25:41; Mk. 9:43-45, etc.), where one cala of water is desired, but will never succeed, and the answer will be heard: Child! Remember that you have already received your good things in your life (Luke 16:25). How grievous, I say, in such distress is to sigh, to groan, to weep, to weep, to eat, to gnash one's teeth endlessly, unceasingly, and uselessly! Sin leads to such terrible evil (Rev. 21:8).

12) Sin and temporal punishments are brought about, such as: bloody wars, pestilences, diseases, sorrows, famines, earthquakes, fires, and so on. If there had been no sin, nothing would have happened. Sin is the cause of all evil and calamity.

13) Sin is the cause that even the most innocent nature suffers. Man sins, but the rest of creation suffers: the earth does not bear fruit, cattle and beasts suffer from hunger, the air and water are corrupted, and so on. Human sin is the cause of all this.

See, man, what evil sin is. Oh, sin is an unspeakable evil, for by it the infinite and all-good God is offended and angered! Shameless betrayal is a sin that we betray to the immortal and righteous God! An incurable ulcer is a sin that wounds, torments and devours our conscience! Spiritual leprosy is a sin that no one but the Only-begotten Son of God can heal! The source of temporal and eternal disasters is the source, the root of condemnation and death, the transformation of nature, the darkening of the mind, the corruption of spiritual goodness and all evils – sin! Righteously, St. John Chrysostom wrote: "There is nothing heavier than sin" (on Psalm 121); "There is nothing more filthy and unclean than sin" (Discourse 25 on the Evangelist John). Truly, sin is more evil than the demon, as the same father teaches (Discourse 41 on the Acts of the Apostles). For even the demon, who was created by the Creator as an angel of light, was made a demon by sin. Truly it is better to walk naked than burdened with sins, as the same father says (Discourse 5 on the Evangelist John).

O sin-loving soul! Look and consider what a great, terrible and incurable evil you love! What a vile monster you delight! Feel and look around to what end this foul love leads you, and, turning away from this horror, turn to the beginning and source of all good – God. When thou returnest, and sigh, then thou shalt be saved, and thou shalt understand where thou wast (Isaiah 30:15).

§ 45. Help in the feat against sin: