10. Abba Isaiah said, "I am like a sparrow that a boy has tied by the leg. If he loosens the rope, the sparrow immediately flies up, thinking that he has been released. But the boy only needs to pull the rope to stop the bird. I say this because nothing can be treated with disdain until the very last breath, for the enemy's malice is manifold."

11. And he said: "If a man has received great powers of knowledge, healing, and even raising the dead, but once he falls into sin, he has no right to forget, he cannot escape repentance."

Let us exert all our strength, brethren, let us prostrate ourselves before God, and His goodness will have mercy on us and send us the strength to cast off the burden of impure passions. After all, the enemy will not calm down and will pursue us hourly to steal our souls. But our Lord Jesus Christ is with us! He forbids him to act if we keep the commandments given to us.

Blessed is the man who, with all his knowledge, is ashamed and prays for the remission of sins. But woe betide those who have wasted all their time in neglect. Thinking that they were infallible, they trampled on their own conscience. They simply did not want their conscience to reproach them, and they did not understand that such a "little" was in fact a great thing.

The farmer sows grain, but if there are no sprouts, he will consider all the work in vain and will be upset that nothing has sprouted. In the same way, a person, even if he knows all the mysteries and all knowledge, if he works great miracles and healings, even if he endures a lot of various sufferings, even if he has nothing to wear, he should still be afraid of sin and not treat his conscience with complacency. After all, he has enemies who plot against him and hunt him. They will not lag behind him until a person achieves perfect love. And then we understand that love never ceases..., it covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Whoever has the fear of God in him performs a feat with all his might, enduring the sufferings that constantly fall to his lot and preserving himself, and even after this he considers himself unworthy to pronounce the name of God with his lips.

12. He also said: "Brother, while you are in the body, do not give indulgences to the heart. Just as a peasant cannot be sure whether he will get a harvest in his field, because he does not know what may happen before the harvest, so a man should not take his eyes off his heart while his breath is warming in his chest. As long as he is alive, even though he suffers from many bodily infirmities, he does not know until his very last breath what passion may begin to overtake him. That is why he must not neglect his soul for a moment, for he is surrounded on all sides by enemies. Life is an enemy environment, and therefore one must always call out to God, asking for help and mercy.

Brothers! It is necessary that spiritual people, both those who have succeeded in the spiritual life and those who are less successful and already tired, should be strengthened in faith until their last breath. As they say, whoever neglects the small first falls into a small sin, and then gradually into a greater one. Do not say that spiritual people do not fall, and great pillars do not crumble.

He will make a small concession, succumb to the enemy's suggestion, will not repent, and this small vice will linger and grow in him for a long time. After all, a small sin is not an orphan at all. He has a huge family, and he will gather it around him. Just click, as a sea of friends and acquaintances will arrive. It is necessary to take up arms and destroy a small sin with a fight, and then a person will preserve the measure he has achieved. If he violates his impassivity, it is only to the extent necessary to overcome the evil that has come. But if after this he interrupts the work of prayer and does not push the enemy further, he will be struck by the poisonous arrows of other passions. And so getting used to each subsequent passion, he will move further and further away from God, leaving himself without His help. He does not want it, but his enemies will force him.

The devil is trying to tell us that little sins are small things. After all, otherwise it cannot involve us in an even greater evil, which intensifies: one passion drags the other with it. In the same way, the good is strengthened with the help of all that is good, propelling forward the bearer of the good.

3. From St. Palladius

A certain monk, who loved silence, settled in the most remote corner of the desert. He sat in a cave and devoted himself to only one activity: prayer, singing, and contemplation of God. And the Lord in dreams and even in reality more than once honored him with many revelations. It can be said that he led an immortal and incorporeal life in everything: he did not think at all about food or bodily comforts. Once he surrendered himself to God, he lived in the desert from then on, leaving the world and not meeting people. Filled with hope in God, he did not admit anything bodily even in his thoughts.

For such steadfast faith, the Lord rewarded him. Once every two or three days, an angel brought him food. When the ascetic entered the cave, feeling hungry, he found bread. He thanked God and gave the body what was necessary. And then, according to his custom, he again turned to divine hymns, prayers and contemplations, constantly holding on to them, constantly enjoying them and rejoicing in them. Thus, day by day, he grew in spiritual achievements, showing his love and zeal for God. The ascetic had reached the point where he almost had the best end of his life in his hands.

But the ascetic began to rely on himself and slightly weakened the severity of his podvig, so confident was he in his impassivity. And immediately he was subjected to a demonic temptation, by which he was defeated. He would have remained a disfigured corpse if the incomparable Lord had not protected him by His mercy.

When the ascetic had reached such self-confidence, the thought crept imperceptibly into his heart that he was superior to others, and that he knew and had more than others, since he had already grown old in such a state. From this a carelessness was born in him, at first small, but gradually growing to noticeable proportions. Not as cheerfully as before, he began to get up from sleep to pray. He became lazy and his singing ceased to be long. His soul wanted peace, his mind sank to earthly things, and his thought became distracted.