The remedy for drunkenness and the call to separate

For even if some escaped the sin in body, they certainly received the corruption in their souls. Let this be said by me also about the men. He saw wrongly, and he was seen wrongly. Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery (Matthew 5:28). If chance encounters hold so much danger for those who watch with curiosity, what will they say, or how will they defend themselves, when they have gathered a swarm of countless evils from such spectacles—meetings arranged on purpose, so as to see women disgracing themselves under drunkenness, putting on forms for laxity, and singing with wanton, effeminate melodies, which even merely heard can stir every frenzy of pleasure in the lustful? Did they not look for this very reason, to rouse their desires? Therefore they are liable, according to the unalterable sentence of the Lord, to the judgment of adultery. How will Pentecost receive you, when Pascha has been so insulted? Pentecost had the clear and universally known visitation of the Holy Spirit; but you, getting ahead of it, made yourself a dwelling place of the opposing spirit, and you became a temple of idols instead of becoming a temple of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. You drew upon yourself the curse of the prophet who said from the person of God: I will turn their feasts into mourning (Amos 8:10). How will you rule your household slaves, when you yourselves serve foolish and harmful desires like slaves? How will you admonish your children, when you live an unadmonished and disordered life? What then? Do I leave you in these things? But I am afraid that the unsubmissive one may become more headstrong, and the one who is pierced may be swallowed up by excessive grief. For healing, it says, will put an end to great sins (Ecclesiasticus 28:2). Let fasting heal drunkenness; let a psalm heal the shameful song; let tears become the healing of laughter; instead of dancing, let the knee be bent; instead of the clapping of hands, let the breast be struck; instead of the adornment of clothing, let there be humility. Above all, let almsgiving ransom you from sin. For a man's own wealth is his ransom (Proverbs 13:8). Enlist many of the afflicted as workers in the fellowship of prayer, if perhaps the thought of evil may be forgiven you. When the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play—and their play was idolatry—then the Levites, arming themselves against their brothers, consecrated their hands for the priesthood (Exodus 32:6). And so to you who fear the Lord, as many as have now been grieved at the shamelessness of those who are condemned, we give this command: if you see them repenting of the absurdity of what they have done, sympathize with them as with your own sick members; but if they are obstinate and despise your grief over them, come out from among them, and be separate, and touch no unclean thing (2 Corinthians 6:17), so that those who are put to shame may come to knowledge of their own evil, and you may receive the reward of Phinehas's zeal, through the righteous judgment of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.