על השכר והעונש כ״חOn Rewards and Punishments 28
א׳
1[162] I have now described without any reservation the curses and penalties which they will deservedly suffer who disregard the holy laws of justice and piety, who have been seduced by the polytheistic creeds which finally lead to atheism and have forgotten the teaching of their race and of their fathers, in which they were trained from their earliest years to acknowledge the One in substance, the supreme God, to whom alone all must belong who follow truth unfeigned instead of mythical figments.
ב׳
2[163] If however they accept these chastisements as a warning rather than as intending their perdition, if shamed into a whole-hearted conversion, they reproach themselves for going thus astray, and make a full confession and acknowledgement of all their sin, first within themselves with a mind so purged that their conscience is sincere and free from lurking taint, secondly with their tongues to bring their hearers to a better way, then they will find favour with God the Saviour, the Merciful, who has bestowed on mankind that peculiar and chiefest gift of kinship with His own Word, from whom as its archetype the human mind was created.
ג׳
3[164] For even though they dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, in slavery to those who led them away captive, one signal, as it were, one day will bring liberty to all. This conversion in a body to virtue will strike awe into their masters, who will set them free, ashamed to rule over men better than themselves.
