Wisdom 11

¹ She made their affairs prosper through the holy prophet.

² They journeyed through the uninhabited desert, and in solitudes they pitched their tents;

³ they withstood enemies and took vengeance on their foes.

⁴ When they thirsted, they called upon you, and water was given them from the sheer rock, assuagement for their thirst from the hard stone.

⁵ For by the things through which their foes were punished they in their need were benefited.

⁶ Instead of a spring, when the perennial river was troubled with impure blood

⁷ as a rebuke to the decree for the slaying of infants, You gave them abundant water in an unhoped-for way,

⁸ once you had shown by the thirst they then had how you punished their adversaries.

⁹ For when they had been tried, though only mildly chastised, they recognized how the wicked, condemned in anger, were being tormented.

¹⁰ the latter you tested, admonishing them as a father; the former as a stern king you probed and condemned.

¹¹ Both those afar off and those close by were afflicted:

¹² For a twofold grief took hold of them and a groaning at the remembrance of the ones who had departed.

¹³ For when they heard that the cause of their own torments was a benefit to these others, they recognized the Lord.

¹⁴ Him who of old had been cast out in exposure they indeed mockingly rejected; but in the end of events, they marveled at him, since their thirst proved unlike that of the just.

¹⁵ And in return for their senseless, wicked thoughts, which misled them into worshiping dumb serpents and worthless insects, You sent upon them swarms of dumb creatures for vengeance;

¹⁶ that they might recognize that a man is punished by the very things through which he sins.

¹⁷ For not without means was your almighty hand, that had fashioned the universe from formless matter, to send upon them a drove of bears or fierce lions,

¹⁸ Or new-created, wrathful, unknown beasts to breathe forth fiery breath, Or pour out roaring smoke, or flash terrible sparks from their eyes.

¹⁹ Not only could these attack and completely destroy them; even their frightful appearance itself could slay.

²⁰ Even without these, they could have been killed at a single blast, pursued by retribution and winnowed out by your mighty spirit; But you have disposed all things by measure and number and weight.

²¹ For with you great strength abides always; who can resist the might of your arm?

²² Indeed, before you the whole universe is as a grain from a balance, or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.

²³ But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook the sins of men that they may repent.

²⁴ For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.

²⁵ And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?

²⁶ But you spare all things, because they are yours, O LORD and lover of souls,