Do Not Despise the Sinner

Do not despise the sinner for we are all guilty. If, for love of God, you rise up against him, mourn for him instead. Why do you despise him? Despise his sins but pray for him so that you may be like Christ, who did not get annoyed with sinners but prayed for them. Can’t you see how he wept over Jerusalem? For we, too, have been duped by the devil more than once. So why despise him whom the devil, who mocks us all, has deceived just like us? Why, O man, despise the sinner? Is it because he is not as just as you are yourself? But what happens to your justice from the moment you are without love? Why did you not weep for him? Instead, you persecute him. It is through ignorance that certain people get upset, believing themselves to have discernment into the deeds of sinners. —Saint Isaac the Syrian, 7th century monk