1 And he said to me, “Do you see this shepherd?” “I see him, Sir,” I said. “This,” he said, “is the angel of indulgence and deceit.⁠a He crushes the souls of God’s servants, and turns them away from the truth, leading them astray with evil desires, in which they perish. 2 For they forget the commandments of the living God, and walk in vain deceptions and acts of indulgence, and are destroyed by this angel—some to death, and others to corruption.” 3 I said to him, “Sir, I do not understand what ‘to death’ and what ‘to corruption’ mean.” “Listen,” he said, “the sheep you saw that were joyful and leaping about are those who have been completely cut off from God, and have given themselves over to the desires of this world. So in these there is no repentance leading to life. For the name of God is blasphemed through them. The life of such people is death. 4 But the sheep you saw not leaping about but feeding in one place are those who have given themselves over to acts of indulgence and deceit, but have not spoken any blasphemy against the Lord. These have been corrupted and turned from the truth. For them there is hope of repentance and of life. Corruption holds out hope of renewal, but death has eternal destruction.” 5 Again we walked on a little way, and he showed me a tall shepherd who looked like a wild man, with a white goatskin thrown around him, and he carried something like a bag on his shoulders, and a very hard, knotted staff, and a large whip. His expression was very sour, so that I was afraid of him because of how he looked. 6 This shepherd kept receiving from the young shepherd those sheep that were lively and well fed but not leaping about, and put them in a place that was steep and covered with thorns and briars, so that the sheep could not untangle themselves from the thorns and briars, but became entangled in them. 7 And so they grazed entangled in the thorns and briars, and were in great pain from being beaten by him; he kept driving them around, giving them no rest, and altogether those sheep had a hard time.