Wisdom 17

KING JAMES BIBLE	NEW JERUSALEM
1 For great are thy judgments, and cannot be expressed: therefore unnurtured souls have erred.	1 Yes, your judgements are great and impenetrable, which is why uninstructed souls have gone astray.
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.	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.
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.	3 While they thought to remain unnoticed with their secret sins, curtained by dark forgetfulness, theywere scattered in fearful dismay, terrified by apparitions.
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.	4 The hiding place sheltering them could not ward off their fear; terrifying noises echoed round them;and gloomy, grim-faced spectres haunted them.
5 No power of the fire might give them light: neither could the bright flames of the stars endure to lighten that horrible night.	5 No fire had power enough to give them light, nor could the brightly blazing stars il uminate that dreadfulnight.
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.	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.
7 As for the illusions of art magick, they were put down, and their vaunting in wisdom was reproved with disgrace.	7 Their magical il usions were powerless now, and their claims to intel igence were ignominiouslyconfounded;
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.	8 for those who promised to drive out fears and disorders from sick souls were now themselves sick withludicrous fright.
9 For though no terrible thing did fear them; yet being scared with beasts that passed by, and hissing of serpents,	9 Even when there was nothing frightful to scare them, the vermin creeping past and the hissing ofreptiles filled them with panic;
10 They died for fear, denying that they saw the air, which could of no side be avoided.	10 they died convulsed with fright, refusing even to look at empty air, which cannot be eluded anyhow!
11 For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and being pressed with conscience, always forecasteth grievous things.	11 Wickedness is confessedly very cowardly, and it condemns itself; under pressure from conscience italways assumes the worst.
12 For fear is nothing else but a betraying of the succours which reason offereth.	12 Fear, indeed, is nothing other than the failure of the help offered by reason;
13 And the expectation from within, being less, counteth the ignorance more than the cause which bringeth the torment.	13 the less you rely within yourself on this, the more alarming it is not to know the cause of yoursuffering.
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,	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-
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.	15 were now chased by monstrous spectres, now paralysed by the fainting of their souls; for a sudden,unexpected terror had attacked them.
16 So then whosoever there fell down was straitly kept, shut up in a prison without iron bars,	16 And thus, whoever it might be that fel there stayed clamped to the spot in this prison without bars.
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.	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.
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,	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,
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.	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.
20 For the whole world shined with clear light, and none were hindered in their labour:	20 For the whole world shone with the light of day and, unhindered, went about its work;
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.	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.