"Your sins have turned back these blessings from you" (Jeremiah 5:25).
If you do not possess good in abundance, O people, that means you have sin in abundance. Your sins have turned your good from you. O people, if you wish good for yourself, reject sin and do not sin anymore and you will travel toward good, and good will come to you and good will not depart from you.
O man, if you do not have good, it means that you have sin. Good cannot dwell in the same house with sin just as light and darkness cannot exist in the same place at the same time. When light departs, darkness settles in and when the darkness departs, the light shines. Thus, sin and good can be interchanged but they cannot dwell together.
O my brethren, "Your sins have turned back these blessings from you." These words were not spoken by only one prophet, to one people only, rather every true prophet spoke these words to his people. False prophets flatter the sins of their people, and thus, assist them even more to turn back good from their people. The true prophets go against the sins of the people, for they go along with good and cry out against sin, in order to be able to introduce good, which is from God, in the souls of their people.
If the beehive begins to smell, will the honey carrying bees enter it and deposit their honey in it? No! And when the irrational bees do not want to enter in a putrid and smoke-ridden beehive, then how will the rational Spirit of God enter a soul, putrid and smoke-ridden from sin? And the Spirit of God is the possessor and the dispenser of all good gifts.
O Lord, Holy Spirit, help Your people by Your irresistible power that they drive away sin from their soul; so that You would be able to enter inside with Your life-creating gifts.
Prologue of Ochrid
O man, if you do not have good, it means that you have sin. Good cannot dwell in the same house with sin just as light and darkness cannot exist in the same place at the same time. When light departs, darkness settles in and when the darkness departs, the light shines. Thus, sin and good can be interchanged but they cannot dwell together.
O my brethren, "Your sins have turned back these blessings from you." These words were not spoken by only one prophet, to one people only, rather every true prophet spoke these words to his people. False prophets flatter the sins of their people, and thus, assist them even more to turn back good from their people. The true prophets go against the sins of the people, for they go along with good and cry out against sin, in order to be able to introduce good, which is from God, in the souls of their people.
If the beehive begins to smell, will the honey carrying bees enter it and deposit their honey in it? No! And when the irrational bees do not want to enter in a putrid and smoke-ridden beehive, then how will the rational Spirit of God enter a soul, putrid and smoke-ridden from sin? And the Spirit of God is the possessor and the dispenser of all good gifts.
O Lord, Holy Spirit, help Your people by Your irresistible power that they drive away sin from their soul; so that You would be able to enter inside with Your life-creating gifts.
Prologue of Ochrid
