The snows melt on the mountain when the sun shines upon it; and the streams flow down to wash the earth. What sun will melt the snow from the peaks of your soul, O sons of men, and wash your earth?
Like a bitter frost, so is your soul frozen stiff with sin. Like last year's snow, on which new snow falls, so motionless lies your sin of last year and the year before, a bed for the sin of today and tomorrow.
You would have no sin, if you had no sinfulness; had you no sinful will, no sin would you have. Snow would not linger on the mountain, if the earth were warm; if the earth were warm and if the cold mist that hides the sun were taken away, snow would linger neither on the mountain nor in the valley.
Cold soil, and cold mist between you and your sun, heap snow upon snow, and ice upon ice.
Who will remit your sins, and your frozenness — who will thaw it?
In vain do you forgive yourselves your sins. By forgiving your own sins you make ice out of snow, a still smoother bed for new snow.
The light of the Three-Sunned Divinity alone can remit your sins, just as the sun alone can melt the snow on the mountain, melt the snow and ice, and coax the flowers out of the black earth.
Your sins are forgiven you — arise! O man, do you know the one who has authority to greet you with these sweet words? I swear to you, you will not find him nor meet him on earth, though you dig up the whole earth crosswise. Though you dig up all the earths that circle around the sun, you will not find him. For he is not of the earth, and the earth does not feed him.
He is the heavenly man, the savior of your soul, far from him who forgives his own sins, but near, very near to him who comes to hate his sins and cries out to heaven to destroy them.
His mind is purer than the sun, and his word is hotter than the sun. Thus he melts the snow from the soul of man, and coaxes the flowers to grow. All the piled-up layers of snow and ice he can melt, and wash the whole earth. Call upon him from the depths of your soul, and he will come.
When he cries out: your sins are forgiven you — your soul, now stiff beneath the burden of sin, will become light and nimble, and the palsy of your body will vanish.
The sins of the soul are wounds of the soul. How shall the body be healthy when the soul is wounded?
The senseless one says: behold my neighbor, a hardened sinner — how his body blossoms with health! Truly the sin of the soul does the body no harm, says the senseless one.
Wait, O senseless one, wait a little longer, until the pus of the soul breaks through the body. Then you will lock your mouth and flee from sin as you flee from stinking rot. Wait until the worm eats through the apple from within, and you will grieve over its outward witheredness and pallor.
Then you too will stand with the lepers at the edge of the road and cry out as one dying: O Son of God, have mercy on me!
And then you will hear — and understand — the saving words: your sins are forgiven you; go in peace!