Nilus of Ancyra→Timothy|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
It is a good thing to persevere in the nighttime prayer without wandering and without distraction. But if it should happen, through some temptation, that you are jostled aside by certain shameful thoughts, do not by any means cease from the good undertaking of the vigil; rather persevere, and grow old in such work, and at the proper season you will assuredly gather in the fruits of wisdom. But if anyone, sitting idle, wishes to live in luxury, and to get drunk, and to pamper his own bed, gratifying sleep and not God, let him look upon the pestilent and loathsome thoughts that rise up in the heart out of his grossness; let him then go on dreaming, and let him await his own fall and ruin. For I will not bring myself to say anything else now than this: that all the carnal, in their manner of life, will be cast out of the kingdom.
It is a good thing to persevere in the nighttime prayer without wandering and without distraction. But if it should happen, through some temptation, that you are jostled aside by certain shameful thoughts, do not by any means cease from the good undertaking of the vigil; rather persevere, and grow old in such work, and at the proper season you will assuredly gather in the fruits of wisdom. But if anyone, sitting idle, wishes to live in luxury, and to get drunk, and to pamper his own bed, gratifying sleep and not God, let him look upon the pestilent and loathsome thoughts that rise up in the heart out of his grossness; let him then go on dreaming, and let him await his own fall and ruin. For I will not bring myself to say anything else now than this: that all the carnal, in their manner of life, will be cast out of the kingdom.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.