28. But if they be not converted, do you at
least repent, who by many a slip have fallen from the lofty pinnacle of
innocence and faith. We have a good Lord, Whose will it is to
forgive all, Who called you by the prophet, and said: “I,
even I, am He that blotteth out transgressions, and I will not
remember, but do thou remember, and let us plead
together.” Isa. xliii. 25 [LXX.]. St. Ambrose, taking the
Septuagint reading, makes the contrast to be between man’s
remembering and God’s forgetting. But the contrast in the
Hebrew is different: God will do away sins of His pure mercy and
challenges Israel to bring forward any merits which can plead for
pardon. God shows that His mercy is even greater than His
justice. St. Ambrose, as is shown more clearly in chap. vi., is
merely using a verbal antithesis.