Verse 7

⁷If a man does not pay here for the wrong he has done, matching what he did, with mind and speech and hands, then surely, when he has died, he goes to those hells of sharp torment that you have told me of. ⁸So let him work at undoing his sin here and at once, before death, while his self is not yet broken down, weighing the fault as heavy or light, the way a doctor who knows the causes treats a disease. ⁹But a man knows from what he has seen and heard that the wrong harms him, and helpless he does it again. What use is atonement then? ¹⁰Sometimes he turns back from the bad thing, and sometimes he does it again. So I think atonement is beside the point, like an elephant's bath.

¹¹The clearing of action by action is not held to be final, since the one who is entitled to it does not know. Atonement is discernment. ¹²Illnesses do not overcome a man who eats only wholesome food. In the same way, king, one who keeps to a rule comes slowly to safety.