Pray then, Brethren, say no evil against Him who was crucified, nor mock at His stripes, by which all may be healed, as we also were healed. For it were well if you obeyed the words of (Scripture) and were circumcised from the hardness of your heart, not the circumcision which you already have according to your ingrained opinion, for this was given you for a sign and not for a work of righteousness, as the words of Scripture compel us to hold.
Agree with us therefore and do not revile the Son of God, nor, obeying Pharisaic teachers, ever make sport of the King of Israel, as the rulers of your synagogues teach you, after the prayer. For if he that toucheth them that are not acceptable to God is as he that toucheth the apple of God’s eye,Zechariah 2:8 how much more he that lays hold of His Beloved. And that this is He, has been shown sufficiently.
As they were silent I said: I will now, my Friends, also adduce the Scriptures as the Seventy interpreted them. For when I stated them before as you yourselves have them I was making trial of you, and your disposition. For in adducing the Scripture which says: Woe to them, because they have taken evil counsel against themselves, saying, I added, as the Seventy interpreted it, Let us take the righteous away, because he is inconvenient to us. Though at the beginning of our discourse I also stated it as you wish it to be said: saying, Let us bind the righteous, because he is inconvenient to us.
But you were busy about other things, and seem to me not to have listened to my words with due attention. But since the day is already coming to an end — for the sun is already near setting — I will add one thing more to what I have already said, and then cease. I have indeed already spoken of it in my earlier utterances, yet it seems right that I should explain it again.