על הנטיעה כ״הConcerning Noah's Work as a Planter 25
א׳
1[107] Again, sacred ministrations and the holy service of sacrifices is a plant most fair, but it has a parasitic growth that is evil, namely superstition, and it is well to apply the knife to this before its green leaves appear. For some have imagined that it is piety to slaughter oxen, and allot to the altars portions of what they have got by stealing, or by repudiating debts, or by defrauding creditors, or by seizing property and cattle-lifting, thinking, in their gross defilement, that impunity for their offences is a thing that can be bought.
ב׳
2[108] “Nay, nay,” I would say to them, “no bribes, O foolish ones, can reach God’s tribunal.” He turns His face away from those who approach with guilty intent, even though they lead to His altar a hundred bullocks every day, and accepts the guiltless, although they sacrifice nothing at all. God delights in altars beset by a choir of Virtues, albeit no fire burn on them. He takes no delight in blazing altar fires fed by the unhallowed sacrifices of men to whose hearts sacrifice is unknown. Nay, these sacrifices do but put Him in remembrance of the ignorance and offences of the several offerers; for Moses, as we know, speaks of sacrifice “bringing sin to remembrance” (Num. 5:15).
ג׳
3[109] All such defilements entail great loss. We must clear the way and cut them off in obedience to the oracle, in which a command is given to clear away the uncleanness of the fruit-trees that have been planted.