To Autolycus 3.11

When the people transgressed the law God had given them, God, being good and merciful and not wishing to destroy them, besides giving the law, later also sent them prophets from among their brothers, to teach them and remind them of the things of the law, and to turn them to repentance, so that they would sin no more. And they foretold that if the people persisted in their evil deeds, they would be handed over as subjects to all the kingdoms of the earth; and that this has already happened to them is plain. About repentance, the prophet Isaiah, speaking to all in general but expressly to the people, says: “Seek the Lord, and when you find him, call upon him; when he draws near to you, let the ungodly forsake his ways and the lawless man his plans, and let him return to the Lord his God, and he will find mercy, for he will abundantly forgive your sins.” And another prophet, Ezekiel, says: “If the lawless man turns away from all the lawless deeds he has done, and keeps my commandments and does my ordinances, he shall surely live and shall not die. None of the wrongs he has done shall be remembered, but by the righteousness he has done he shall live; for I do not desire the death of the lawless, says the Lord, but that he should turn from his evil way and live.” Again Isaiah: “Turn back, you who devise deep and lawless plans, so that you may be saved.” And another, Jeremiah: “Turn back to the Lord your God, like the grape-gatherer to his basket, and you will find mercy.” Many, indeed countless, are the sayings in the holy Scriptures about repentance, since God always wishes to turn the human race away from all its sins.