Graphic Bible · Scene 5 of 6

A neglected vineyard is overgrown with thorny weeds.
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 comparison

Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Mandate 10, section i

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.

Shepherd of Hermas 37:5

The Neglected Vineyard

Sorrow, Understanding, and the Neglected Vineyard · Shepherd of Hermas 37

Story guide: The shepherd compares worldly preoccupation to a vineyard choked by weeds.

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5“Listen,” he says. “Those who have never inquired about the truth nor sought concerning the divine, but have only believed, and are mixed up with business affairs and wealth and pagan friendships and many other affairs of this age—so all who devote themselves to these do not understand the parables of the divine; for they are darkened by these pursuits and are corrupted and become barren. Just as good vineyards, when they are neglected, become barren from thorns and various weeds, so also the people who have believed and fall into these many pursuits just mentioned are led astray from their understanding, and they understand nothing at all about righteousness. And even when they hear about the divine and the truth, their mind is occupied with their business, and they understand nothing at all.

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