78. The Creator swore that He does not desire the death of the wicked, as it is written, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked return from his way and live,” live in both words: this world and the next world.
79. Happy are the children who are told “Therefore, repent and live.” “Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” For He does not desire the death of the wicked, but that they will repent, so they may live.
80. It is written, “But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; their hope is disillusionment.” This is similar to a sect of robbers who were robbing in the mountains. The king heard, sent his armies against them, caught them, and placed them in a tall tower. But there were clever ones among them; they dug a digging in the tower and went out and escaped. There was a fool among them, who saw the digging, and did not want to run to escape.
81. The next day, the king came to see the tower and the robbers. He saw the digging that they did and that they fled. He said to that fool, “Your friends fled through that digging and escaped my judgments; what can I do to them? But you, who saw the digging with your eyes and did not want to escape, your eyes will be taken out, and afterwards, you will be hanged on a tree.”
82. So are the robbers, those wicked ones who walk in the dark. The clever wicked ones, what do they do? They say, “We sinned against the king, to where will we escape from his judgment? But let us open the way of repentance and ask for mercy, and run and escape,” and so they did. The fools, what do they do? They see the path of repentance open before them, which the others have opened and escaped from the judgment of heaven, yet they do not want to escape.
83. The Creator said to them, “Fools, your brothers ran and escaped through that path of repentance that they opened; what more can I do to them? But you, your eyes that saw the digging, the path of repentance, opened before you, and did not want to get into it and flee and escape, it is written about you, ‘But the eyes of the wicked will fail,” for they saw the open way. ‘Escape will elude them,’ for they did not want to flee and escape. “And their hope,’ for the next world, ‘is disillusionment.’”
84. So was the generation of the flood: They saw Noah making the ark and cautioning them each day, and they saw him entering the ark, and did not want to repent. The Creator said, “But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them, for they did not want to repent and escape from My judgments, and their hope is disillusionment, since they will not rise in the day of judgment, as it is written, ‘The dead tremble under the waters and their inhabitants.’”