To Florus 4.131
A little later it continues: “By chastising them you made your children full of good hope, because when you judge you give room for repentance amid sins. For if you delivered the enemies of your servants, who deserved death, with so much affliction by way of warning, giving time and opportunity through which malice could be changed, with what care do you judge your children, to whose fathers you gave oaths and covenants containing good promises? Therefore, when you discipline us, you scourge our enemies many times over, so that we may reflect on your goodness in judging” (Wisdom 12:19–22).
Latin
Denique post paululum sequitur: Illos enim castigando, bonae spei fecisti filios tuos, quoniam iudicans, das in peccatis locum paenitentiae. Si enim inimicos servorum tuorum et morti debitos cum tanto cruciatu admonitionis liberasti, dans tempus et locum per quem possit mutari malitia; cum quanta diligentia iudicas filios tuos, quorum parentibus et iuramenta et pacta dedisti bonarum promissionum? Cum ergo nobis disciplinam das, inimicos nostros multipliciter flagellas, ut bonitatem tuam cogitemus iudicantis [n210] .