О хранении очей и языка

It is written: “You shall create a fence on your roof” so that it may be like a guard (Deut. 22:8). Likewise, the face should have guardrails of modesty, so that the one looking at it does not inwardly creep and fall. If David, who so carefully guarded his eyes, fell into sin, then can the careless one, whose gaze wanders everywhere, remain innocent? Let us keep in our memory Job, whose eyes were as chaste as his heart. It is written: if you see your neighbor’s cattle perishing, “do not despise them” (Deut. 22:1). And if the ruler himself dies, then the virtuous should take great care of him. If the Almighty took care of the perishing calf in the Law, then how much more does He care about our mind and our will, in short, about the most precious soul when it wanders and loses its property. Blessed is He who, having given the law about animals, showed in it His love for souls! “If you see a donkey... fallen,” even if it belonged to the enemy, “raise up and rise with you” (Deut. 22:4). If the man himself, and not his beasts of burden, falls into an invisible ditch, then can the righteous remain indifferent? If, like the priest and the Levite, they passed by, then our Lord shows us an example in the Samaritan, who bandaged the wounds of the victim of the robbers and put him on his donkey and paid for him (Luke 10:30-31). Blessed is the One who descended to ulcerated humanity! His generosity healed us with wine and oil. In another place it is written: if anyone has an ox that is hungry and does not keep it locked, “let him die” (Ex. 21:29). Will the Righteous One ignore the kidnapper who has been goring (stabbing) all day? An ox has only two horns, a rich man has seventy-seven. Woe to you, fat ox, stealing and devouring the labor of tired oxen! Blessed is the well-fed Taurus, who came and sacrificed Himself for people! The covetous, the lover of quarrels and the envious torture his neighbor, but more than anyone else, the inquisitive researcher tortures his listeners all day long. If the ox that caused the death of one person was stoned without mercy along with its owner, then how will the impudent one be justified, who with his words inflicts mortal wounds on many? Make him, O Lord, a disciple of Thy truth, and let him till the fields under Thy yoke. Whoever digs a hole, let him cover it, so that no one falls and dies (Ex. 21:33). Every word of an unbeliever, as quickly as he opens his mouth, is like a hidden pit. If God gave the law to close the visible pit, then does he not all the more require this in the reasoning of the mouth, which is always open and through sin plunges those who listen not into the pit, but into Gehenna? Blessed is He who blocked the invisible ditch into which the evil one cast Adam! It is written: if anyone has a disobedient son “and curses his father... let him die” (Ex. 21:16). If the one who opposes earthly parents suffers such a terrible death, then how many times more severe punishment are worthy of those who are so impudent that they blaspheme the good Father with their lips? Blessed is the Just One, Who is good even to the unbelievers, although they blaspheme Him! You might be interested in: