Wisdom 17

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE	CATHOLIC PUBLIC DOMAIN
1 For great are your judgments, and hardly to be described; therefore the unruly souls were wrong.	1 For your judgments, O Lord, are great, and your words are indescribable. Therefore, undisciplined souls have wandered astray.
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 they managed to convince the unjust, so as to obtain dominion over the holy nation, they themselves were fettered with chains of darkness and of endless night, enclosed in their houses, fugitives of everlasting providence, lying in ruins.
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 escape notice in their secret sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of oblivion, being horribly afraid, and having been disturbed with 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 cave which enclosed them preserve them from fear, because descending noises disturbed them, and the sorrowful persons appearing to them intensified their fear.
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, indeed, even fire had no strength to provide them light, nor could the clear flames of the stars illuminate 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 Yet there appeared to them a sudden fire, filled with fear; and, having been struck with the fear of that face which is unseen, they considered those things which they did see to be worse,
7 And mockeries of the magic art were in readiness, and a jeering reproof of their vaunted shrewdness.	7 and, having been ridiculed, the illusions were removed from their arts along with their contemptuous rebuke of glorious wisdom.
8 For they who undertook to banish fears and terrors from the sick soul themselves sickened with a ridiculous fear.	8 Indeed, those who promised to drive away fears and disturbances from a languishing soul, though they were filled with derision, were themselves languishing in fear.
9 For even though no monstrous thing frightened them, they shook at the passing of insects and the hissing of reptiles,	9 And, even if nothing unnatural disturbed them, yet being agitated by the passing of animals and the hissing of snakes, they died of fear, denying what they themselves saw even in the air, which no one thinks to be able to escape.
10 And perished trembling, reluctant to face even the air that they could nowhere escape.	10 For, while there may be apprehension with wickedness, it gives testimony to condemnation, for a troubled conscience always forecasts harshness.
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 unfaithfulness to thinking helpful things.
12 For fear is nought but the surrender of the helps that come from reason;	12 And, while expectation is driven from within, the cause of this is supposing that one is great in knowledge, and as a result, conflict excels.
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 Yet those who were truly powerless that night, being overcome by both the vilest and the deepest hell, were sleeping 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 sometimes stirred up by the fear of unnatural things, other times sinking down in disgrace of soul, for a sudden and unexpected fear overcame them.
15 Were partly smitten by fearsome apparitions and partly stricken by their souls' surrender; for fear came upon them, sudden and unexpected.	15 Then, if any among them had fallen away, he was kept in a prison without bars which had been left open.
16 Thus, then, whoever was there fell into that unbarred prison and was kept confined.	16 For if a farmer, or a shepherd, or a worker in a field of labor were suddenly overcome, he endured an inescapable necessity.
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. Or if there were a whistling wind, or the sweet sound of birds among the thick tree branches, or the force of water rushing excessively,
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 strong noise of rocks crashing down, or the scattering of playful animals having been seen, or the strong voice of bellowing beasts, or the resounding of the highest mountain echo, these things made them sink down because of 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 being hindered in their labors.
20 For the whole world shone with brilliant light and continued its works without interruption;	20 But then, the heavy night was placed over the sun for them, an image of that darkness which was about to overcome them. Yet they were more grievous to themselves than was 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.