Chapter 2
On Discernment and Watchfulness
1 If you love only the good disciples, you have no credit; rather, bring the more troublesome ones into submission through gentleness.[1]
2 Not every wound is healed by the same poultice.
3 Calm acute attacks with cooling compresses.
4 Be wise as a serpent in all things, and forever innocent as the dove.
5 This is why you are both carnal and spiritual: so that you may deal gently, face to face, with what appears on the surface; but as for what is invisible, ask that it be revealed to you, so that you may lack nothing and abound in every gift of grace.[2]
6 The hour demands you — as winds demand a helmsman, and a harbour the storm-tossed sailor — that you may attain to God.
7 Be sober as God’s athlete; the prize is incorruption and eternal life, of which you yourself are already convinced.
8 In every way I am a ransom for you—I and these chains of mine, which you have loved.