Rest assured that if you kill me – since I am the person I say I am – you wouldn't harm me more than you harm yourselves. Neither Meletus nor Anytus could do anything to harm me; it isn't even possible. For I don't think it's divinely sanctioned for a better man to be harmed by a worse. Doubtless, he could kill me, or send me into exile, or take away my rights, and doubtless he and others also think these things are great evils. But I don't. In fact, I think that what he's doing now – trying to kill a man unjustly – is a much greater evil. Athenians, at this point I'm far from making this defense on my behalf, as one might think, but instead I'm making it on yours, so that by condemning me you don't make a terrible mistake regarding the gift the god has given you.