By the laver therefore of repentance and of the knowledge of God, the laver which has been made on behalf of the iniquity of the peoples of God, as Isaiah cries aloud, we have believed, and make known that this very thing which he announced beforehand, even baptism, which alone can cleanse them that have repented, even this is the water of life. But as for the cisterns which ye dug for yourselves, they are broken and quite useless to you. For what is the profit of that baptism which makes only the flesh and the body bright?
Baptize your soul (free) from anger and from covetousness, from envy, from hatred — and behold your body is clean. For this is the inner meaning of the unleavened bread, that ye do not practise the old deeds of the bad leaven. But you have thought of all things in a carnal way, and consider it to be piety, even though when ye do such things, your souls are filled with guile, and, in fact, evil of every kind.
Therefore also after the seven days of eating unleavened bread God charged you to knead new leaven for yourselves, that is, the practice of other deeds, and not the imitation of the old and worthless. And to show that this is what this new Lawgiver requires of you I will repeat over again the words that have before been spoken by me, together with the rest that were omitted. Now they are thus said by Isaiah:
Hear ye Me, and your soul shall live, and I will make for you an everlasting Disposition, the holy and sure blessings of David. Behold I have given Him for witness to nations, a ruler and commander to nations. Nations which know thee not, shall call on thee; and peoples, which have no knowledge of thee, shall flow unto thee; because of thy God, the Holy One of Israel, for He hath glorified thee.
Seek ye God, and when ye find Him call on Him, when He draweth near to you. Let the ungodly forsake his ways, and a lawless man his plans, and let him return to the Lord, and he shall receive mercy, because He will greatly forgive your sins. For my plans are not as your plans, nor my ways as your ways, but as far as the heaven is distant from the earth, so far is my way distant from your way, and your thoughts from my thinking.
For as snow comes down, or rain, from the heaven, and turns not away, until it soaks the earth, and brings forth, and causes to bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread for food, so shall My word be, which goeth forth at any time out of My mouth. It shall not turn away, until all things whatsoever I desired are completed, and I prosper my commandments.
For in gladness shall ye go forth and in joy shall be led over. For the mountains and the hills shall leap in welcome to you, and all the trees of the fields shall clash their branches, and instead of the broom shall come up cypress, and instead of the flea bane shall come up myrtle, and the Lord shall be for a name, and for an everlasting sign, and He shall not fail.Isaiah 55:3-13
Now of these and such-like words spoken by the prophets, Trypho, I said, some have been spoken with reference to the first coming of Christ, in which He has been proclaimed as about to appear both without honour and without form and mortal, but others have been spoken with reference to His second coming, when He will be present in glory and upon the clouds, and your people will see and will recognize Him whom they pierced, as Hosea, one of the Twelve Prophets, and Daniel foretold.