¹ I ask you, dearest brothers, not to take offense or consider us excessive for frequently reminding you to love your enemies. We do this because we have come to understand that no remedy is stronger for healing the wounds of all sins. And do not think it unfitting that we urge you toward love of your enemies even on the feast days of the martyrs. We do so because we know that all the martyrs attained the crown of martyrdom through this most perfect charity. We rejoice with great admiration that this was also fulfilled in blessed Stephen.

² I urge you, brothers, to pay careful attention and understand: in all wicked people, we must hate their vices, not the people themselves. Love the person; hate the sin. Do not love sin on account of the person, nor hate the person on account of the sin. The person is your neighbour; the sin is your neighbour’s enemy. You truly love your friend when you hate the sin that harms him.

³ If you believe, you do well, for “the righteous shall live by faith”. This is common in human affairs: sometimes, someone who was a dear friend to you and another friend becomes an enemy to one of you. Two out of three friends become hostile to each other. What should the one who remains neutral do? One of them will say to you: “You are not my friend because you are friends with my enemy.” The other will say the same about him. The three who were once friends are now divided: two are at odds, and you are left alone.

⁴ If you side with one, you will hate the other as an enemy; if you side with the other, you will hate the first. If you oppose both, both will grumble against you. This is a test. Perhaps you are waiting to hear from me what you should do? Remain a friend to both. Let those who are at odds with each other find harmony through you. If you hear one speaking ill of the other, do not betray their words, lest they later reconcile and turn against you as a traitor.

⁵ But I said this for the sake of people, not for the eyes of God. Look, no one betrays you to God—He is the one who sees you, the one who judges you.

⁶ You have heard a word spoken in anger, from someone who is hurt and resentful—let it remain with you. Why should it be exposed, why should it be revealed? If it stays within you, it will not destroy you.

⁷ Certainly, tell your friend—who seeks to make you an enemy of your other friend—speak to him, and gently treat his ailing soul as a physician would with medicine. Say to him: “Why do you want me to be his enemy?” He will answer, “Because he is my enemy.”

⁸ Then say: “Do you want me to be the enemy of your enemy? I must instead be the enemy of your sin. The one whom you wish me to hate is a man—but there is another enemy, the one I should oppose if I am truly your friend.” He will ask, “Who is this other enemy of mine?” Answer him: “Your own fault.” He will ask, “What is my fault?” Tell him: “The hatred with which you despise your friend.”

⁹ Be like a doctor, then. A doctor does not love the sick person if he does not hate the illness. In order to heal the patient, he fights against the fever. Do not love the vices of your friends if you love your friends. But to whom do I say this? Do I not do it myself? What I say, my brothers, I do—if I do it within myself. And I begin with myself first when I receive from the Lord the hatred of my own vices. I offer my heart to the Physician for healing, I fight against my sins as much as I can, I grieve over them, I confess them because they are within me, and I accuse myself.

¹⁰ If you were the one correcting me, then correct yourself. This is justice, unless it is said to us: “You see the speck in your brother’s eye, but you do not notice the beam in your own eye. Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

¹¹ Anger is like a small stake; hatred is a beam. But if you nourish the stake, it becomes a beam. Anger that festers turns into hatred; a stake that is nurtured becomes a beam. So that the stake does not become a beam, do not let the sun set on your anger.

¹² Do you see and feel the poison of hatred in yourself while condemning someone who is angry? Remove hatred from yourself, and then you will rightly condemn anger. There is a stake in his eye, but a beam in yours. And how can an eye with a beam see the stake? I do not know with what face one who harbours hatred in his heart dares to rebuke someone who expresses anger. The one who bursts out in anger but quickly calms down has indeed been wounded by a stake, but he immediately removes it through repentance.

¹³ But the one who holds on to hatred in his heart for a long time, by nurturing the stake, transforms it into a beam. There is a beam in your eye because you refused to remove the stake when it first appeared. You slept with it, woke up with it, cultivated it within yourself. You watered it with false suspicions, nurtured it by believing the flattering words of those who bring you malicious reports about your friend. Because you did not carefully pull out the stake, you have made it into a beam.

¹⁴ Remove the beam from your own eye; do not hate. Are you alarmed by your brother, or are you not alarmed? I tell you, do not hate, and you will be secure.

¹⁵ You respond and say to me: “What does it mean to hate, and what harm is there if a person hates his enemy?” You hate your brother, yet you dismiss hatred as nothing. Listen to the divine Scripture: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer”.

¹⁶ Therefore, if he is a murderer, you may not have prepared poison, you may not have gone out with a sword to strike your enemy, you may not have set up an accomplice for the crime, nor chosen a place or time—ultimately, you may not have committed the crime itself—yet simply by hating, you have already killed, and you have destroyed yourself before him.

¹⁷ Learn, then, the path of justice: do not hate anything except a person’s vices. If you hold to this and practice this justice—so that you prefer to heal even those who are wicked rather than condemn them—then, before the judgment seat of the eternal Judge, you will come not to be condemned for hatred, but to be crowned for love and peace.

¹⁸ This will be granted by our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.