Exhortation to Martyrdom 17

What, then, Joshua said to the people when he settled them in the holy land, Scripture might now say to us too. The wording is this: “Now fear the Lord and serve him in uprightness and in righteousness.” And to us, when we are being persuaded to worship idols, it will say also what follows: “Put away the foreign gods, which your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.” At the beginning, when you were about to be instructed in the faith, it would reasonably have been said to you: “But if it does not please you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites, among whom you dwell in the land.” And the one instructing you would have said: “But I and my house will serve the Lord, for he is holy.” But now there is no room for these things to be said to you; for then you said, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods. The Lord our God, he is God, who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, and kept us in all the way in which we went.” And also, in your agreements about the worship of God, you long ago answered those who instructed you: “We too will serve the Lord; for he is our God.” If, then, one who breaks agreements with men is faithless and a stranger to safety, what must be said of those who by denial set aside the agreements they made with God, and run back to Satan, whom they renounced at their baptism? For to such a person we must say the words Eli spoke to his sons: “If a man sins against a man, they will pray for him; but if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?”