The Argument Recapitulated

¹⁴ I answered and said, ¹⁵ “I said before, and I say now, and will say it again: there are more who perish than those who will be saved, ¹⁶ as a wave is greater than a drop of water.”

¹⁷ He answered me and said, “As is the field, so is the seed; and as are the flowers, so are the colors; and as is the work, so is the product; and as is the farmer, so is the threshing floor. ¹⁸ For there was a time in this age when I was preparing for those who now exist, before the world was made for them to dwell in, and no one opposed me then, for no one existed; ¹⁹ but now those who have been created in this world which is supplied both with an unfailing table and an inexhaustible pasture,^[a] have become corrupt in their ways. ²⁰ So I considered my world, and behold, it was lost, and my earth, and behold, it was in peril because of the devices of those who^[b] had come into it. ²¹ And I saw and spared some^[c] with great difficulty, and saved for myself one grape out of a cluster, and one plant out of a great forest.^{[d] 22} So let the multitude perish which has been born in vain, but let my grape and my plant be saved, because with much labor I have perfected them.

⁵⁴ Behold, the Lord knows all the works of men, their imaginations and their thoughts and their hearts. ⁵⁵ He said, “Let the earth be made,” and it was made; “Let the heaven be made,” and it was made. ⁵⁶ At his word the stars were fixed, and he knows the number of the stars. ⁵⁷ It is he who searches the deep and its treasures, who has measured the sea and its contents; ⁵⁸ who has enclosed the sea in the midst of the waters, and by his word has suspended the earth over the water; ⁵⁹ who has spread out the heaven like an arch, and founded it upon the waters; ⁶⁰ who has put springs of water in the desert, and pools on the tops of the mountains, to send rivers from the heights to water the earth; ⁶¹ who formed man, and put a heart in the midst of his body, and gave him breath and life and understanding ⁶² and the spirit of Almighty God; who made all things and searches out hidden things in hidden places.