In Bamidbar 15, the text speaks of someone who commits an intentional sin (mentioning idolatry and blasphemy) and says that kareit is the punishment (if there was no warning) etc. Then the story of the man who was found gathering stick on Shabbat is related and his punishment is a death penalty.
The Stone chumash notes that in the first cases, one cannot atone through an offering (and no other method of atonement is discussed) but in pasuk 31, the phrase "עֲוֹנָה בָהּ" is understood by Rashi to mean that excision from the community lasts until the person does teshuva - so there must be an atonement process (also cited in Sanhedrin 90b). So it seems that doing teshuva can stop kareit which has already started.
But is repentance an effect of having received a punishment or is it separate from that? Can I repent sincerely and avoid punishment in the first place? If the man gathering wood on Shabbat, after having been warned and in the presence of witnesses, hears his death sentence and then truly repents (not out of fear but maybe out of a realization that he did wrong on a grand scale and a wish to be a better person), must the death penalty be carried out because it is a required consequence or is the penalty eliminated because of teshuva? Can the intentional idolater change the divine decree of kareit before it takes place (if, for example,one understands Kareit to be "dying young")?
[One cannot repent after having been killed but if one does repent before his execution then he can still have his share in olam haba (as per the Sifre on pasuk 31, cited in the Stone).]
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