על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א י׳On the Special Laws, Book I 10
א׳
1[56] There is recorded in the Laws the example of one who acted with this admirable courage. He had seen some persons consorting with foreign women and through the attraction of their love-charms spurning their ancestral customs and seeking admission to the rites of a fabulous religion. One in particular he saw, the chief ringleader of the backsliding, who had the audacity to exhibit his unholy conduct in public and was openly offering sacrifices, a travesty of the name, to images of wood and stone in the presence of the whole people. So, seized with inspired fury, keeping back the throng of spectators on either side, he slew without a qualm him and her, the man because he listened to lessons which it were a gain to unlearn, the woman because she had been the instructor in wickedness.
ב׳
2[57] This deed suddenly wrought in the heat of excitement acted as a warning to multitudes who were preparing to make the same apostasy. So then God, praising his high achievement, the result of zeal self-prompted and whole-hearted, crowned him with a twofold award, the gifts of peace and priesthood, the first because He judged the champion who had battled for the honour of God worthy to claim a life free from war, the second because the guerdon most suitable to a man of piety is the priestly office which professes the service of the Father, bondage to Whom is better not only than freedom but also than kingship.
ג׳
3[58] But some labour under a madness carried to such an extravagant extent that they do not leave themselves any means of escape to repentance, but press to enter into bondage to the works of men and acknowledge it by indentures not written on pieces of parchment, but, as is the custom of slaves, branded on their bodies with red-hot iron. And there they remain indelibly, for no lapse of time can make them fade.