1 “You know, then, sirs,” I said, “that in Isaiah God said to Jerusalem, ‘I saved you in the flood of Noah.’ What God meant by this is that the mystery of saved humanity took place in the flood. For righteous Noah, along with the others at the flood, that is, his wife, his three sons, and his sons’ wives, eight in number, were a symbol of the day that is eighth in number, on which our Christ appeared when He rose from the dead, though in power it is always the first.⁠a 2 For Christ, being the firstborn of all creation, also became the beginning of another race, the one reborn through Him by water, faith, and wood, which holds the mystery of the cross, just as Noah was saved by wood, riding on the waters with his household. So when the prophet says, ‘I saved you in the time of Noah,’ as I said before, he is speaking to the people who are likewise faithful to God and have these symbols. For Moses too led your people through the sea with a rod in his hand. 3 But you think He was speaking to your nation alone, or to the land. Yet since the whole earth, as the Scripture says, was flooded, and the water rose fifteen cubits above all the mountains, it is evident that God was not speaking to the land but to the people who obey Him, for whom He also prepared a place of rest in Jerusalem beforehand, as was shown earlier through all the symbols of the flood. I mean that by water, faith, and wood, those who prepare themselves beforehand and repent of the sins they have committed will escape the judgment of God that is coming.