2 in such a way as that any one of you may not be able to root out desire, but reasoning will enable you to avoid being enslaved to it.
3 One may not be able to root out anger from the soul, but it is possible to withstand anger.
4 Any one of you may not be able to eradicate malice, but reasoning has force to work with you to prevent you yielding to malice.
5 For reasoning is not an eradicator, but an antagonist of the passions.
6 And this may be more clearly comprehended from the thirst of king David.
7 For after David had been attacking the Philistines the whole day, he with the soldiers of his nation killed many of them;
8 then when evening came, sweating and very weary, he came to the royal tent, about which the entire host of our ancestors was encamped.