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Mishna Avot 4:2
Ben Azzai said: The reward for performing a precept is [an opportunity to perform] another precept, and the reward for committing a transgression is [a temptation to commit] another transgression.
Commentary
Ben Azzai's claim here is remarkably modern. He removes good and bad behavior from the realm of simple reward and punishment or life and death. The believing Jew is not assigned to the Book of Life or Death based on what he does, but is rather routed along a particular moral path towards more elevated good deeds or corrupting evil ones. Righteousness is thus its own reward, not a way of securing some external benefit. The same with evil: it is its own punishment, not the grounds on which God sweeps us away.
