A Reading from St. Ephraim, Confessor and Doctor
On the Various Places of Torment and On the Judgment

We know from the Gospel that there are various places of torment.  For it has been revealed to us that there is exterior darkness (Mt. viii. 12), and so it follows that there is also interior darkness (cf.. Mk. v).  The fire of Gehenna is another place, the abode of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. xxv. 30). Another place speaks of the worm that dieth not (Mk. ix. 43).  We read in another place of the pool of fire (Apoc. xix. 20), and again of tartarus, of unquenchable fire (Mk. ix. 42, 44).  The lower world of destruction and perdition are written of in precise terms (Mt. vii. 13; I Tim. vi. 9).  The depths of the earth is another place.  The hell where sinners are tormented, and the depths of hell, a more fearful place.  The wretched souls of the damned are distributed throughout these places of punishment, each one according to the nature of his sins; fearfully or less fearfully, as it is written: Each one is fast bound by the ropes of his own sins (Prov. v. 22); and this is what is meant by the servant who is beaten with many stripes or with few stripes (Lk. xii. 47, 48).  For just as there are differences of sin so also are there differences in punishment.

They who foment enmities among themselves, if they should happen to pass from this life in that state, they shall in the same hour undergo the inexorable condemnation of this Judge (Mt. v. 18), and as hateful to God they shall be cast into exterior darkness for having helped as of no importance the precept of the Lord that says: Love one another, and forgive one another, even to seventy times seven.  Let every sinner remember that he cannot live in security in this life, or free of anxiety; yet that we are never at any time to despair.  For we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ (I Jn. ii. I), and He is the propitiation for our sins; but not of the sins of those who live lives free from all concern and anxiety, lives of sloth, of sleeping, or living for pleasure, and laughter and drunkenness, but for the sins of those who grieve for their sins, who do penance for them, calling on HIm in the day and in the night.  It is these who shall receive the comfort of the Advocate.