Give as much as you can to the poor, 'build up treasures for yourself in heaven', that it may be fulfilled in you 'he dispersed, he gave to the poor, his justice remains through the ages' as it is written: as water extinguishes fire, so alms do all sin. You have, I know, since you overflow with capability. As our humility exults and rejoices in the Lord about your beginning, so may the Lord and his angels be glad of your conversion and perfection. I pray God that he deign to rule you, to protect and preserve you, and that he deign to give you beginning and end since it is not who begins but 'who perseveres to the end will be saved'. I, though least and negligent, greet with the humility and charity which I owe more than can be said. And elsewhere scripture says: God orders us to be pacific and harmonious and of one spirit in his home. 'Much peace to those loving your name, Lord, and no scandal to them' : for virginity of the flesh is worth nothing where wrath dwells in the heart. Be pacific in all things, since his place is made in peace: 'Blessed the peacemakers, they will be called children of God'. Just as the Lord was there for you when he was on the cross, so you be crucified for the work of God think of nothing else, do not presume to speak nor to act otherwise. Be mindful when you say a psalm, what he says there and he himself teaches you: 'Psalm wisely'. God, do not withdraw from me my God, look to my help. Call on God continually: 'God, incline to my help Lord, hasten to help me. As strongly and virilely as if you were men, you would have fought against your enemies lest your body be pierced, so constantly and virilely fight against the devil lest he kill your souls by counsels and the worst thoughts.

Hear Scripture saying: 'Son, as you approach the service of God, be in justice and fear and prepare your soul against temptation'. 'Act virilely, that your heart may be comforted'. As God rejoices in the beginnings of your conversion, so the devil grieves about it, who has thousands and thousands of arts of harming and seeks God's food for himself so pray incessantly that God resist him. Hear the apostle: 'who wish to live piously in Christ, suffer persecution'. See this, hold this, which our Lord and master Christ taught by words and fulfilled by example, who made so many miracles in the world that they can not be counted, and sustained so many ills from his persecutors through patience, that can scarcely be believed. Though it be holy and good and laudable that you desire to live by the Rule, there is no greater, better, more precious nor more splendid doctrine than the reading of the gospel.

Hear the Lord saying: 'On whom shall I rest if not on the humble and quiet? He put down the powerful from their seat and exalted the humble'. Let your heart be pure, your heart peaceable be mild and humble, patient, obedient. Love and fear the Lord for 'the eyes of the Lord are always on those who fear him and his ears to their prayers'.

Abstain from all vice, from all sin since 'who commits sin is the servant of sin'. And since the Lord deigned to choose you, ladies dearest to me in Christ, as his heirs, give thanks to him and bless him always. Hide your words in my heart that I may never sin against you'. Fulfill this: 'May meditation of the heart always be in your sight. Let the whole mind, the whole thought, the whole meditation be on the precepts of the Lord solicitously fear that: 'Cursed are those who fall away from your commands' and who would not keep one or the least of the Lord's mandates will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. As attentively as secular men hear when royal precepts are read, so attentively listen when divine readings are read. 'Our lord God, who raises the broken and loosed the fettered and illuminates the blind', let him direct you on the right road, let him teach you to do his will, let him grant that you walk in his precepts and keep his mandates and meditate on his law, as the psalmist says: 'And on his law he will meditate day and night' and: 'the lucid precept of the Lord illuminating eyes, the irreprehensible law of the Lord converting souls'. When your messenger had come and left the letters of your holy piety, I was filled with inestimable and spiritual joy since I knew you had chosen and hold to that from which, with God helping, you prepared for yourselves eternal life and acquire eternal riches and exaltation with the saints which has no end. Lowly Caesaria to the holy ladies Richild and Radegund.

Opus domini translation