Wisdom 17

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE	KING JAMES BIBLE
1 For great are your judgments, and hardly to be described; therefore the unruly souls were wrong.	1 For great are thy judgments, and cannot be expressed: therefore unnurtured 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 when unrighteous men thought to oppress the holy nation; they being shut up in their houses, the prisoners of darkness, and fettered with the bonds of a long night, 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 For while they supposed to lie hid in their secret sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness, being horribly astonished, and troubled with [strange] apparitions.
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 might the corner that held them keep them from fear: but noises [as of waters] falling down sounded about them, and sad visions appeared unto them with heavy countenances.
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 No power of the fire might give them light: neither could the bright flames of the stars endure to lighten 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 Only there appeared unto them a fire kindled of itself, very dreadful: for being much terrified, they thought the things which they saw to be worse than the sight they saw not.
7 And mockeries of the magic art were in readiness, and a jeering reproof of their vaunted shrewdness.	7 As for the illusions of art magick, they were put down, and their vaunting in wisdom was reproved with disgrace.
8 For they who undertook to banish fears and terrors from the sick soul themselves sickened with a ridiculous fear.	8 For they, that promised to drive away terrors and troubles from a sick soul, were sick themselves of 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 did fear them; yet being scared with beasts that passed by, and hissing of serpents,
10 And perished trembling, reluctant to face even the air that they could nowhere escape.	10 They died for fear, denying that they saw the air, which could of no side be avoided.
11 For wickedness, of its nature cowardly, testifies in its own condemnation, and because of a distressed conscience, always magnifies misfortunes.	11 For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and being pressed with conscience, always forecasteth grievous things.
12 For fear is nought but the surrender of the helps that come from reason;	12 For fear is nothing else but a betraying of the succours which reason offereth.
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 And the expectation from within, being less, counteth the ignorance more than the cause which bringeth the torment.
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 But they sleeping the same sleep that night, which was indeed intolerable, and which came upon them out of the bottoms of inevitable hell,
15 Were partly smitten by fearsome apparitions and partly stricken by their souls' surrender; for fear came upon them, sudden and unexpected.	15 Were partly vexed with monstrous apparitions, and partly fainted, their heart failing them: for a sudden fear, and not looked for, came upon them.
16 Thus, then, whoever was there fell into that unbarred prison and was kept confined.	16 So then whosoever there fell down was straitly kept, shut up in a prison without iron bars,
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 whether he were husbandman, or shepherd, or a labourer in the field, he was overtaken, and endured that necessity, which could not be avoided: for they were all bound with one chain of darkness.
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 Whether it were a whistling wind, or a melodious noise of birds among the spreading branches, or a pleasing fall of water running violently,
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 Or a terrible sound of stones cast down, or a running that could not be seen of skipping beasts, or a roaring voice of most savage wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the hollow mountains; these things made them to swoon for fear.
20 For the whole world shone with brilliant light and continued its works without interruption;	20 For the whole world shined with clear light, and none were hindered in their labour:
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.	21 Over them only was spread an heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them: but yet were they unto themselves more grievous than the darkness.