Graphic Bible · Scene 2 of 12

Illustrative teaching reflection: an unnamed adult sits quietly with open empty hands in an inferred prayer pose.
AI-generated artwork interprets this work's literary visions and teaching, not authenticated historical events or portraits. Source and translation notes preserve the available edition's limits and review uncertainty. Illustrative teaching reflection

Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Mandate 9

The available POB edition is a partial translation, not a summary or the complete ancient work. Popular, not Scripture. Artwork interprets literary visions and teaching; it does not establish their portrayals as historical events.

Source and translation notes

The text names Hermas as its narrator. The illustrations do not identify a historical author or supply authenticated portraits.

Existing reader manuscript-image reference: Codex Sinaiticus. Working source: Lightfoot & Harmer 1891 (normalized OCR) · Greek

English witness: People's Open Bible provisional English rendering (Cartha Inc. and contributors) · CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ — for POB project outputs; source editions retain their original licenses

Numbered reading units are modern paragraph divisions, not ancient verse numbers. The available units follow Visions, Mandates, and Similitudes; absent passages are not reconstructed.

  • The available edition begins mid-dialogue and ends mid-sentence in Similitude 8.iv; absent passages are not supplied.
  • Reading paragraph 6 [a]: Repentance and related expressions are read in this works own context; they are not restricted to feeling sorry, and no uniform Godward formula is imposed. Use repentance for moral change while preserving the works own teaching about baptism, forgiveness, conduct and the angel of repentance; do not impose a different tradition on it.

Shepherd of Hermas 36:2

Ask with the Whole Heart

Faith, Asking, and the Warning about Double-mindedness · Shepherd of Hermas 36

Story guide: The teaching urges turning wholeheartedly to the Lord and asking without doubting.

Open this scene in the reader →

2Do not reason about these things, but turn to the Lord with your whole heart, and ask from him without doubting; and you will come to know his great compassion, because he will certainly not abandon you, but will fulfill the request of your soul.

Step through the story beside the Scripture itself. About the People’s Open Bible