Wisdom 11

¹She directed their works in the hands of a holy Prophet.

²They made a journey through the deserts, that were not inhabited: and in desert places they pitched cottages.

³They stood against the adversaries, and revenged themselves of the enemies.

⁴They thirsted, and invocated thee, and water was given them out of a most high rock, and quenching of their thirst out of the hard stone.

⁵For by the things whereby their enemies suffered punishment, for defect of their drink, and therein, when the children of Israel abounded, they did rejoice:

⁶by these things, when others lacked the same, it went well with them.

⁷For in stead of the fountain of an everlasting river, thou gavest man's blood to the unjust.

⁸Who when they were diminished in the destruction of the murdered infants, thou gavest them aboundant water unlooked for:

⁹shewing by the thirst, that then was, how thou didst exalt thine, & didst kill their adversaries.

¹⁰For when they were tempted, and indeed with mercy taking discipline, they knew how the impious being judged with wrath did suffer torments.

¹¹These certes admonishing as a father thou didst prove: but them examining as a hard king thou didst condemn.

¹²For the absent and the present were tormented alike.

¹³For double tediousness had taken them, and sighing with the memory of good things past.

¹⁴For when they understood by their punishment that it went well with them, they remembered our Lord, marveling at the end of the event.

¹⁵For whom before they derided, being cast forth in that wicked laying out to perish, him they marveled at in the end of the event: not thirsting in like manner to the just.

¹⁶But for senseless cogitations of their iniquity, for that some erring did worship dumb serpents and superfluous beasts, thou didst send upon them a multitude of dumb beasts for revenge:

¹⁷that they might know that by what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented.

¹⁸For thine omnipotent hand, which made the world of invisible matter, was not unable to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions,

¹⁹or unknown beasts full of anger of a new kind; or breathing the vapour of fires, or casting forth the savour of smoke, or shooting horrible sparks from their eyes:

²⁰of which not only their hurt was able to destroy them, but also their sight to kill them for fear.

²¹Yea and without these with one spirit they might have been slain suffering persecution of their own facts, and dispersed by the spirit of thy power: but thou hast disposed all things in measure, and number, and weight.

²²For, to be of great force rested always in thee only: & who shall resist the power of thine arm?

²³Because as the least weight of the balance, so is the round world before thee, and as a drop of the dew before day, that falleth upon the earth.

²⁴But thou hast mercy on all, because thou canst do all things, and dissemblest the sins of men for repentance.

²⁵For thou lovest all things that are, and hatest nothing of those which thou hast made: for thou didst not ordain or make any thing hating it.

²⁶And how could any thing continue, unless thou wouldest? Or be preserved which was not called of thee?

²⁷But thou sparest all: because they are thine o Lord, which lovest souls.