For thus shall I be found guiltless in every respect as far as you are concerned, if, as I draw up my proofs, I do my uttermost to persuade you. But if you remain hard of heart, or weak in decision, because of the death to which Christians are destined, and do not desire to agree to the Truth, you yourselves will clearly be to blame. And you utterly deceive yourselves, in supposing that because you are Abraham’s seed according to the flesh you will certainly inherit the good things which God has announced that He will give to men through Christ.
For no one can by any means receive any of these save they who have become in their mind like to the faith of Abraham, and have known all the mysteries, I mean that one commandment was appointed for piety and the practice of righteousness, and another command and action was in the same way spoken either as referring to the mystery of Christ or on account of the hardness of your people’s heart. And that this is so God said in Ezekiel when He was making a statement about this very subject: If Noah and Jacob and Daniel demand either sons or daughters, it shall not be given them.
And in Isaiah He said thus of the very same matter: The Lord God said: And they shall go out and see the limbs of the men that have transgressed; for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle for all flesh.
So that you must cut this hope away from your souls, and take pains to recognize the way by which remission of your sins shall come to you, and the hope of the inheritance of the good things that have been announced. It is no other than this, that you should recognize this Christ, and, washing yourselves in the laver that was proclaimed by Isaiah for the remission of sins, live without sin henceforth.