Chapter 23
1 These things the blessed Susanna taught us long ago, prefiguring in herself in every respect the mysteries of the Church, whose faithfulness and reverence and chastity concerning the body is proclaimed in all the earth until now.
2 I exhort you therefore, all who read this Scripture, women and virgins, small and great: keeping the judgment of God before your eyes, take her as an example and imitate her; and like Susanna you will be able to be vindicated by God and to be delivered from the second death by the Word who lived his life in Daniel.
3 For let the men seek the dignity of Joseph, and the women the purity and faithfulness of Susanna; do not give occasion of blasphemy against yourselves, lest you confirm as true the things spoken by the elders.
4 For many false speakers and deceivers of the mind have crept in, deceiving the innocent souls of the saints—some corrupting the women with persuasive words and dragging them to their own desires, others overturning the men with heretical sayings, that they may accomplish their own will.
5 For this reason the apostle, foreseeing what was to come, said: I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts should be corrupted from the knowledge that is in Christ.
6 Come to your senses, all you saints, I exhort you; love the truth and recognize the purity of Susanna, who was not enslaved to the flesh, to the desire of pleasure, nor carried off by the persons of the elders, but feared God with her whole heart, choosing the temporary death that she might escape the second death of fire.