61. Rabbi Aba and Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Chizkiyah were sitting and studying the Torah. Rabbi Chizkiyah said to Rabbi Aba: Indeed we see that the Holy One, blessed be He desires to have Judgment upon everything, so the two will mix together, JUDGMENT AND MERCY. Nevertheless, He withholds Judgment from the wicked of the world. Why, if He is desirous of Judgment, remove it from the evil? NAMELY, WHY IS HE SO PATIENT? He said to him: How many mountains, WISE MEN, have been uprooted by this, NOT KNOWING THE TRUE MEANING THEREOF. But the holy luminary revealed several things concerning the matter.
62. Come and see: The Judgment that the Holy One, blessed be He is desirous of, is a clear Judgment, that stirs love and joy, NAMELY, THE JUDGMENT OF THE LEFT COLUMN AFTER JOINING THE RIGHT COLUMN, TO BECOME THE SECRET OF THE WINE THAT MAKES GLAD ELOHIM AND MEN, AND IS ALSO THE SECRET OF GOLD. But the wicked, when in the world, are under Judgment of defilement, the Judgment which the Holy One, blessed be He does not want at all. Therefore, there must not be mixing of the holy Judgment with the defiled Judgment, until THE DEFILED JUDGMENT is exterminated of itself, and causes EVIL to be lost from the World to Come, for the defiled Judgment in it causes it to be destroyed.
63. He opened the discussion and said: "When the wicked sprout like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed forever" (Tehilim 92:8). This verse was explained. Nevertheless, come and see: "the wicked sprout like grass" MEANS just as grass on dry land becomes dry. And when it is given water, it blooms and the dryness disappears. Like a cut tree, when it flourishes again, grows only side branches growing upwards, but never a whole tree, as was before, NAMELY "THE WORKERS OF INIQUITY FLOURISH." And all that happens so "they shall be destroyed forever," that is, they will be severed from their root and from everything else.
64. There is yet another secret in this, why the Holy One, blessed be He is long-suffering with the wicked in this world. It is because this world is the portion of the Other Side, and the World to Come is part of the side of holiness, and the portion of the righteous, where they will be adorned by the crown of the glory of their Master. These two sides stand the one against the other, THE WORLD TO COME, the side of holiness and THIS WORLD, the Other Side of defilement. This is destined for the righteous and that for the wicked. And all this corresponds to all that. Happy are the righteous, who have no part in this world, but in the World to Come.