Epistle to Diognetus

Having thus planned everything already in His mind with His Son, He permitted us during the former time to be borne along by disorderly impulses as we desired, led astray by pleasures and lusts, not at all because He took delight in our sins, but because He bore with us, not because He approved of the past season of iniquity, but because He was creating the present season of righteousness, that, being convicted in the past time by our own deeds as unworthy of life, we might now be made deserving by the goodness of God, and having made clear our inability to enter into the kingdom of God of ourselves, might be enabled by the ability of God.

Πάντ̓ οὖν ἤδη παῤ ἑαυτῷ σὺν τῷ παιδὶ οἰκονομηκώς, μέχρι μὲν τοῦ πρόσθεν χρόνου εἴασεν ἡμᾶς, ὡς ἐβουλόμεθα, ἀτάκτοις φοραῖς φέρεσθαι, ἡδοναῖς καὶ ἐπιθυμίαις ἀπαγομένους. οὐ πάντως ἐφηδόμενος τοῖς ἁμαρτήμασιν ἡμῶν, ἀλλ̓ ἀνεχόμενος, οὐδὲ τῷ τότε τῆς ἀδικίας καιρῷ συνευδοκῶν, ἀλλὰ τὸν νῦν τῆς δικαιοσύνης δημιουργῶν, ἵνα ἐν τῷ τότε χρόνῳ ἐλεγχθέντες ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων ἔργων ἀνάξιοι ζωῆς νῦν ὑπὸ τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ χρηστότητος ἀξιωθῶμεν, καὶ τὸ καθ̓ ἑαυτοὺς φανερώσαντες ἀδύνατον εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ θεοῦ δυνατοὶ γενηθῶμεν.