Joshua 5:9

What does it profit, if we fast for our sins and again commit sins? What does it profit to have washed and again to wallow in the mire? Have you fasted for some time? It is as though in the meantime you had departed from Egypt. You have crossed the Red Sea, you have followed Moses, observing that is to say the precepts and commandments of the law; but now Jesus has received you from Moses, who also "circumcises you a second time," in the place which is called "the hill of foreskins." You must therefore be circumcised not only of the worship of idols, which you cast away in the beginning, but again avarice too must be circumcised from you, which is the subtler worship of idols. Finally Jesus, circumcising the people with a second circumcision, speaks thus: "Today I have taken away from you the reproach of Egypt." So long as we sin, so long as the vices of the passions reign in us, even though, having abandoned the images, we seem to have departed from Egypt, yet the "reproach of Egypt" has not been taken away from us. If therefore you receive this second circumcision of the vices and cut away from yourself every vice of anger, pride, envy, lust, avarice, iniquity and the rest of the like, then the "reproaches of Egypt" will be wiped away from you, and, carried over into the land of promise, you will receive the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, through the true Jesus, Christ our Lord and Savior, "to whom is glory unto the ages of ages. Amen."

Let us see, however, what this very thing is which is said: "today I have taken away the reproach from the children of Israel." All men, even if they come from the law, even if they have been instructed through Moses, nevertheless have "the reproach of Egypt" in themselves, the "reproach" of sins. Who will be like Paul even according to the observance of the law? Hear then him himself saying: "according to the righteousness which is in the law, having conducted myself without blame." Yet he himself declares and says: "for we too were once foolish, unbelieving, going astray, serving desires and various pleasures, in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another." Do these things not seem to you to be "reproaches," and "reproaches of Egypt"? But from the time that Christ came and gave us the second circumcision "through the washing of regeneration" and cleansed our souls, we cast off all these things and in their place took up the pledge of a good conscience toward God. Then through the second circumcision the "reproaches of Egypt" were taken away from us and the vices of sins were cleansed. Let no one, therefore, if he has been wholly converted, if he has repented from the heart, if he has faithfully departed from the streams of the Jordan, if he has been cleansed by the second circumcision through the gospel, fear the "reproaches" of past transgressions. You hear that "today I have taken away from you the reproach of Egypt." This the Lord signifies also in the Gospels, when he says: "your sins are forgiven you," "but now sin no more, lest something worse befall you." For if after the remission of sins you sin no more, truly "the reproach of Egypt has been taken away from you." But if you sin again, again the old reproaches are rolled back upon you, all the more so as it is a much greater crime "to trample the Son of God underfoot and to count the blood of the covenant a polluted thing" than to neglect the law of Moses. For much greater is the reproach of him who fornicates after the gospel than of him who, being placed under the law, does so, because this one, taking away "the members of Christ, makes them members of a harlot." You see, then, how much graver and more heaped-up are the reproaches that are rolled back upon you, if you have been negligent. Indeed, now no one accuses you as guilty of debauchery, but condemns you for the crime of sacrilege,…