If the first handful of dough is consecrated, so is the rest of the lump; if the root is consecrated, so are the branches.

Supposing some of the branches have been broken off, while you have been grafted in like a shoot of wild olive to share the rich growth of the olive-stem,

do not pride yourself at the expense of these branches. Remember, in your pride, the stem supports you, not you the stem.

You will say, "But branches were broken off to let me be grafted in!"

For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

For if you have been cut from an olive which is naturally wild, and grafted, contrary to nature, upon a garden olive, how much more will the natural branches be grafted into their proper olive?