Wisdom 17

NEW JERUSALEM	CATHOLIC PUBLIC DOMAIN
1 Yes, your judgements are great and impenetrable, which is why uninstructed souls have gone astray.	1 For your judgments, O Lord, are great, and your words are indescribable. Therefore, undisciplined souls have wandered astray.
2 While the wicked supposed they had a holy nation in their power, they themselves lay prisoners of thedark, in the fetters of long night, confined under their own roofs, banished from 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 While they thought to remain unnoticed with their secret sins, curtained by dark forgetfulness, theywere scattered in fearful dismay, 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 The hiding place sheltering them could not ward off their fear; terrifying noises echoed round them;and gloomy, grim-faced spectres haunted them.	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 fire had power enough to give them light, nor could the brightly blazing stars il uminate that dreadfulnight.	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 The only light for them was a great, spontaneous blaze -- a fearful sight to see! And in their terror,once that sight had vanished, they thought what they had seen more terrible than ever.	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 Their magical il usions were powerless now, and their claims to intel igence were ignominiouslyconfounded;	7 and, having been ridiculed, the illusions were removed from their arts along with their contemptuous rebuke of glorious wisdom.
8 for those who promised to drive out fears and disorders from sick souls were now themselves sick withludicrous fright.	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 Even when there was nothing frightful to scare them, the vermin creeping past and the hissing ofreptiles filled them with panic;	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 they died convulsed with fright, refusing even to look at empty air, which cannot be eluded anyhow!	10 For, while there may be apprehension with wickedness, it gives testimony to condemnation, for a troubled conscience always forecasts harshness.
11 Wickedness is confessedly very cowardly, and it condemns itself; under pressure from conscience italways assumes the worst.	11 For fear is nothing else but unfaithfulness to thinking helpful things.
12 Fear, indeed, is nothing other than the failure of the help offered by 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 the less you rely within yourself on this, the more alarming it is not to know the cause of yoursuffering.	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 And they, al locked in the same sleep, while that darkness lasted -- which was in fact quite powerlessand had issued from the depths of equal y powerless Hades-	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 now chased by monstrous spectres, now paralysed by the fainting of their souls; for a sudden,unexpected terror had attacked them.	15 Then, if any among them had fallen away, he was kept in a prison without bars which had been left open.
16 And thus, whoever it might be that fel there stayed clamped to the spot in this prison without bars.	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 Whether he was ploughman or shepherd, or somebody at work in the desert, he was stil overtakenand suffered the inevitable fate, for al had been bound by the one same chain of darkness.	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 The soughing of the wind, the tuneful noise of birds in the spreading branches, the measured beat ofwater in its powerful course, the headlong din of rocks cascading down,	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 the unseen course of bounding animals, the roaring of the most savage of wild beasts, the echorebounding from the clefts in the mountains, all held them paralysed with fear.	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 the light of day and, unhindered, went about its work;	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 there spread a heavy darkness, image of the dark that would receive them. Butheavier than the darkness was the burden they were to themselves.