1 I said to him, “Sir, explain one more thing to me.” “What are you asking now?” he said. “Sir,” I said, “are those who live in self-indulgence and are deceived punished for as long as they lived in self-indulgence and deception?” He said to me, “They are punished for the same length of time.” 2 “Then, Sir,” I said, “they undergo very mild punishments; for those who live like that, forgetting God, ought to be punished sevenfold.” 3 He said to me, “You are foolish, and do not understand the power of the punishment.” “True,” I said, “for if I had understood, I would not have asked you to tell me.” “Listen,” he said, “to the power of both self-indulgence and the punishment. 4 The time of self-indulgence and deceit is one hour. But one hour of punishment has the power of thirty days. So if someone lives in self-indulgence and is deceived for one day, and is punished for one day, the day of punishment is equal to a whole year. For every day a person lives in self-indulgence, he is punished for a year.⁠a You see then,” he said, “that the time of self-indulgence and deceit is very short, but the time of punishment and torment is long.”