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and you yourself become poor, but if you should think that what you have paid down is at all a worthy price, saying: Give me the pearl, for I have given all that is mine! you will immediately hear your Master saying this: What "all that is yours" are you talking about? You came forth naked from your mother’s womb and you will surely enter the tomb naked again. What things do you say are yours? Fool, do you not perceive at all? And you will not receive a pearl, nor will you receive a kingdom. But if you should scatter all your possessions completely, or are exceedingly poor, and you should approach saying thus: Behold, Savior, now a heart (116) and soul, contrite and terribly punished and intensely burning! Behold, Master, me naked, behold me bereft of all virtue, a stranger and exceedingly poor in these things and having nothing to give for Your purchase, O Word, and have mercy on me, my only forbearing God. For what worthy thing shall I find in the world, O my God, which I may give in Your honor, You who made all things? For what did the prostitute give, what did the thief provide, and what wealth did the prodigal, my Christ, bring to You? Say these things, and you will hear:

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καί πτωχός αὐτός γενήσῃ, ὡς ἀντάξιον δέ ὅλως τίμημα εἰ ἐννοήσῃς ὅ,τι κατεβάλου, λέγων˙ ∆ότε μοι τόν μαργαρίτην, δέδωκα γάρ ἅπαντά μου! παρ᾿ εὐθύς τοῦτο ἀκούσῃ λέγοντός σου τοῦ ∆εσπότου˙ Ποῖα ἅπαντά σου λέγεις; Σύ γυμνός ἀπό κοιλίας ἐξελήλυθας μητρός σου καί γυμνός ἐν τῷ μνημείῳ πάλιν πάντως εἰσελεύσῃ. Σά δέ ποῖα λέγεις εἶναι; Ἄφρων, ὅλως οὐκ αἰσθάνῃ; Καί οὐ λήψῃ μαργαρίτην, οὐδέ λάβῃς βασιλείαν. Ἄν δέ ἅπαντα σκορπίσῃς τά ὑπάρχοντά σου ὅλως ἤ πτωχός ὑπάρχῃς λίαν καί προσέλθῃς λέγων οὕτως˙ Ἴδε, Σῶτερ, νῦν καρδίαν (116) καί ψυχήν συντετριμμένην καί δεινῶς κολαζομένην καί σφοδρῶς ἐκκαιομένην! Ἴδε, ∆έσποτα, γυμνόν με, ἴδε με ἠπορημένον ἀρετῆς ἁπάσης ξένον καί πτωχόν ἐν τούτοις λίαν καί μή ἔχοντά τι δοῦναι εἰς ἐξώνησίν σου, Λόγε, καί ἐλέησόν με, μόνε ἀνεξίκακε Θεέ μου. Τί γάρ ἄξιον εὑρήσω ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, ὦ Θεέ μου, ὅπερ δώσω εἰς τιμήν σου, τοῦ ποιήσαντος τά πάντα; Τί γάρ ἔδωκεν ἡ πόρνη, τί δέ ὁ λῃστής παρέσχεν, ὁ δέ ἄσωτος, Χριστέ μου, ποῖον πλοῦτόν σοι προσῆξε; Ταῦτα λέξον, καί ἀκούσῃ˙