Wisdom 17

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE	DOUAI-RHEIMS
1 For great are your judgments, and hardly to be described; therefore the unruly souls were wrong.	1 For thy judgments, O Lord, are great, and thy words cannot be expressed: therefore undisciplined souls have erred.
2 For when the lawless thought to enslave the holy nation, shackled with darkness, fettered by the long night, they lay confined beneath their own roofs as exiles from the eternal providence.	2 For while the wicked thought to be able to have dominion over the holy nation, they themselves being fettered with the bonds of darkness, and a long night, shut up in their houses, lay there exiled from the eternal providence.
3 For they who supposed their secret sins were hid under the dark veil of oblivion Were scattered in fearful trembling, terrified by apparitions.	3 And while they thought to lie hid in their obscure sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness, being horribly afraid and troubled with exceeding great astonishment.
4 For not even their inner chambers kept them fearless, for crashing sounds on all sides terrified them, and mute phantoms with somber looks appeared.	4 For neither did the den that held them, keep them from fear: for noises coming down troubled them, and sad visions appearing to them, affrighted them.
5 No force, even of fire, was able to give light, nor did the flaming brilliance of the stars succeed in lighting up that gloomy night.	5 And no power of fire could give them light, neither could the bright flames of the stars enlighten that horrible night.
6 But only intermittent, fearful fires flashed through upon them; And in their terror they thought beholding these was worse than the times when that sight was no longer to be seen.	6 But there appeared to them a sudden fire, very dreadful: and being struck with the fear of that face, which was not seen, they thought the things which they saw to be worse:
7 And mockeries of the magic art were in readiness, and a jeering reproof of their vaunted shrewdness.	7 And the delusions of their magic art were put down, and their boasting of wisdom was reproachfully rebuked.
8 For they who undertook to banish fears and terrors from the sick soul themselves sickened with a ridiculous fear.	8 For they who promised to drive away fears and troubles from a sick soul, were sick themselves of a fear worthy to be laughed at.
9 For even though no monstrous thing frightened them, they shook at the passing of insects and the hissing of reptiles,	9 For though no terrible thing disturbed them: yet being scared with the passing by of beasts, and hissing of serpents, they died for fear: and denying that they saw the air, which could by no means be avoided.
10 And perished trembling, reluctant to face even the air that they could nowhere escape.	10 For whereas wickedness is fearful, it beareth witness of its condemnation: for a troubled conscience always forecasteth grievous things.
11 For wickedness, of its nature cowardly, testifies in its own condemnation, and because of a distressed conscience, always magnifies misfortunes.	11 For fear is nothing else but a yielding up of the succours from thought.
12 For fear is nought but the surrender of the helps that come from reason;	12 And while there is less expectation from within, the greater doth it count the ignorance of that cause which bringeth the torment.
13 and the more one's expectation is of itself uncertain, the more one makes of not knowing the cause that brings on torment.	13 But they that during that night, in which nothing could be done, and which came upon them from the lowest and deepest hell, slept the same sleep.
14 So they, during that night, powerless though it was, that had come upon them from the recesses of a powerless nether world, while all sleeping the same sleep,	14 Were sometimes molested with the fear of monsters, sometimes fainted away, their soul failing them: for a sudden and unlooked for fear was come upon them.
15 Were partly smitten by fearsome apparitions and partly stricken by their souls' surrender; for fear came upon them, sudden and unexpected.	15 Moreover if any of them had fallen down, he was kept shut up in prison without irons.
16 Thus, then, whoever was there fell into that unbarred prison and was kept confined.	16 For if any one were a husbandman, or a shepherd, or a labourer in the field, and was suddenly overtaken, he endured a necessity from which he could not fly.
17 For whether one was a farmer, or a shepherd, or a worker at tasks in the wasteland, Taken unawares, he served out the inescapable sentence;	17 For they were all bound together with one chain of darkness. Whether it were a whistling wind, or the melodious voice of birds, among the spreading branches of trees, or a fall of water running down with violence,
18 for all were bound by the one bond of darkness. And were it only the whistling wind, or the melodious song of birds in the spreading branches, Or the steady sound of rushing water,	18 Or the mighty noise of stones tumbling down, or the running that could not be seen of beasts playing together, or the roaring voice of wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the highest mountains: these things made them to swoon for fear.
19 or the rude crash of overthrown rocks, Or the unseen gallop of bounding animals, or the roaring cry of the fiercest beasts, Or an echo resounding from the hollow of the hills, these sounds, inspiring terror, paralyzed them.	19 For the whole world was enlightened with a clear light, and none were hindered in their labours.
20 For the whole world shone with brilliant light and continued its works without interruption;	20 But over them only was spread a heavy night, an image of that darkness which was to come upon them. But they were to themselves more grievous than the darkness.
21 Over them alone was spread oppressive night, an image of the darkness that next should come upon them; yet they were to themselves more burdensome than the darkness.