Won't you start by examining whether your decision makes sense? You need to build on a solid foundation. If you lay a rotten foundation, your building will collapse even faster when you pile materials on top. You're about to take away a friend and companion from us for no good reason — someone who belongs to our community, both the local one and the greater human community. You're committing murder. You're destroying an innocent person. And you say you should stick to your decisions? What if you decided to kill me? Should you stick to that decision too?
Will you not make the beginning and lay the foundation in an inquiry whether the determination is sound or not sound, and so then build on it firmness and security? But if you lay a rotten and ruinous foundation, will not your miserable little building fall down the sooner, the more and the stronger are the materials which you shall lay on it? Without any reason would you withdraw from us out of life a man who is a friend and a companion, a citizen of the same city, both the great and the small city? Then while you are committing murder and destroying a man who has done no wrong, do you say that you ought to abide by your determinations? And if it ever in any way came into your head to kill me, ought you to abide by your determinations?"