1Wisdom prospered their works in the hand of a holy prophet.
2They traveled through a desert without inhabitant,
and they pitched their tents in trackless regions.
3They withstood enemies and repelled foes.
4They thirsted, and they called upon you,
and water was given to them out of the flinty rock,
and healing of their thirst out of the hard stone.
5For by what things their foes were punished,
by these they in their need were benefited.
6When enemies were troubled with clotted blood
instead of a river’s ever-flowing fountain,
7to rebuke the decree for the slaying of babies,
you gave them abundant water beyond all hope,
8having shown by the thirst which they had suffered
how you punished the adversaries.
9For when they were tried, although chastened in mercy,
they learned how the ungodly were tormented, being judged with wrath.
10For you tested these as a father admonishing them;
but you searched out those as a stern king condemning them.
11Yes and whether they were far off or near,
they were equally distressed;
12for a double grief seized them,
and a groaning at the memory of things past.
13For when they heard that through their own punishments the others benefited,
they recognized the Lord.
14For him who long before was thrown out and exposed they stopped mocking.
In the end of what happened, they marveled,
having thirsted in another manner than the righteous.
15But in return for the senseless imaginings of their unrighteousness,
wherein they were led astray to worship irrational reptiles and wretched vermin,
you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them,
16that they might learn that by what things a man sins, by these he is punished.
17For your all-powerful hand
that created the world out of formless matter
didn’t lack means to send upon them a multitude of bears, fierce lions,
18or newly-created and unknown wild beasts, full of rage,
either breathing out a blast of fiery breath,
or belching out smoke,
or flashing dreadful sparks from their eyes;
19which had power not only to consume them by their violence,
but to destroy them even by the terror of their sight.
20Yes and without these they might have fallen by a single breath,
being pursued by Justice, and scattered abroad by the breath of your power;
but you arranged all things by measure, number, and weight.
21For to be greatly strong is yours at all times.
Who could withstand the might of your arm?
22Because the whole world before you is as a grain in a balance,
and as a drop of dew that comes down upon the earth in the morning.
23But you have mercy on all men, because you have power to do all things,
and you overlook the sins of men to the end that they may repent.
24For you love all things that are,
and abhor none of the things which you made;
For you never would have formed anything if you hated it.
25How would anything have endured unless you had willed it?
Or that which was not called by you, how would it have been preserved?
26But you spare all things, because they are yours,
O Sovereign Lord, you who love the living.