Wisdom - The Old Testament

¹ She made their actions successful, by means of a holy prophet.

² They journeyed through an unpeopled desert and pitched their tents in inaccessible places.

³ They stood firm against their enemies, fought off their foes.

⁴ On you they called when they were thirsty, and from the rocky cliff water was given them, from hard stone a remedy for their thirst.

⁵ Thus, what had served to punish their enemies became a benefit for them in their difficulties.

⁶ Whereas their enemies had only the ever-flowing source of a river fouled with mingled blood and mud,

⁷ to punish them for their decree of infanticide, you gave your people, against all hope, water in abundance,

⁸ once you had shown by the thirst that they were experiencing how severely you were punishing their enemies.

⁹ From their own ordeals, which were only loving correction, they realised how an angry sentence was tormenting the godless;

¹⁰ for you had tested your own as a father admonishes, but the others you had punished as a pitiless king condemns,

¹¹ and, whether far or near, they were equally afflicted.

¹² For a double sorrow seized on them, and a groaning at the memory of the past;

¹³ when they learned that the punishments they were receiving were beneficial to the others, they realised it was the Lord,

¹⁴ while for the man whom long before they had exposed and later mockingly rebuffed, they felt only admiration when all was done, having suffered a thirst so different from that of the upright.

¹⁵ For their foolish and wicked notions which led them astray into worshipping mindless reptiles and contemptible beetles, you sent a horde of mindless animals to punish them

¹⁶ and to teach them that the agent of sin is the agent of punishment.

¹⁷ And indeed your all-powerful hand which created the world from formless matter, did not lack means to unleash a horde of bears or savage lions on them

¹⁸ or unknown beasts, newly created, full of rage, breathing out fire, or puffing out stinking smoke, or flashing fearful sparks from their eyes,

¹⁹ beasts able not only to destroy them, being so savage, but even to strike them dead by their terrifying appearance.

²⁰ However, without these, one breath could have blown them over, pursued by Justice, whirled away by the breath of your power. You, however, ordered all things by measure, number and weight.

²¹ For your great power is always at your service, and who can withstand the might of your arm?

²² The whole world, for you, can no more than tip a balance, like a drop of morning dew falling on the ground.

²³ Yet you are merciful to all, because you are almighty, you overlook people's sins, so that they can repent.

²⁴ Yes, you love everything that exists, and nothing that you have made disgusts you, since, if you had hated something, you would not have made it.

²⁵ And how could a thing subsist, had you not willed it? Or how be preserved, if not called forth by you?

²⁶ No, you spare all, since all is yours, Lord, lover of life!