Wisdom 11

NEW JERUSALEM	DIODATI
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 cal ed when they were thirsty, and from the rocky cliff water was given them, from hardstone 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 al hope, water inabundance,
8 once you had shown by the thirst that they were experiencing how severely you were punishing theirenemies.
9 From their own ordeals, which were only loving correction, they realised how an angry sentence wastormenting the godless;
10 for you had tested your own as a father admonishes, but the others you had punished as a pitilessking condemns,
11 and, whether far or near, they were equal y 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, theyrealised it was the Lord,
14 while for the man whom long before they had exposed and later mockingly rebuffed, they felt onlyadmiration when al 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 andcontemptible 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 al -powerful hand which created the world from formless matter, did not lack meansto unleash a horde of bears or savage lions on them
18 or unknown beasts, newly created, ful of rage, breathing out fire, or puffing out stinking smoke, orflashing fearful sparks from their eyes,
19 beasts able not only to destroy them, being so savage, but even to strike them dead by their terrifyingappearance.
20 However, without these, one breath could have blown them over, pursued by Justice, whirled awayby 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 theground.
23 Yet you are merciful to al , because you are almighty, you overlook people's sins, so that they canrepent.
24 Yes, you love everything that exists, and nothing that you have made disgusts you, since, if you hadhated something, you would not have made it.
25 And how could a thing subsist, had you not wil ed it? Or how be preserved, if not cal ed forth by you?
26 No, you spare al , since al is yours, Lord, lover of life!