They’re hard to break

Let’s gird ourselves tightly and labor to carry out the Lord’s commandments, lest we be bound tightly with the chains of wicked desires and soul-destroying pleasures, which are difficult to break. Then we’ll avoid the verdict on the barren fig-tree which was: ‘Cut it down to the roots, because it’s just taking up room’. If people don’t bear good fruit, they get cut down and are consigned to the flames.

Saint Theodoros of Edessa