Wisdom Led the Israelites through the Desert
1 Wisdom brought success to the people of Israel through a holy prophet. 2 They traveled across a desert where no one lived and camped in places where no human being had ever been. 3 They stood up to their enemies and fought them off. 4 When your people grew thirsty, they called to you, Lord, and you gave them water flowing out of solid rock. 5 The disasters that punished the Egyptians saved your people when they were in trouble.
The Punishment of the Egyptians
6-8 Because those enemies decreed that the babies of your people should be killed, you stirred up the sources of their everflowing river and made it foul with blood.
In the desert you let your people go thirsty, to give them a taste of how you had punished their enemies. And then, when they least expected it, you gave them plenty of water. 9 When they were being tested, even though it was a merciful discipline, they learned how wicked people were tortured when you judged them in anger. 10 You tested your people, as parents test their children, to warn them. But you judged their enemies like a stern king and condemned them. 11 They suffered, whether they were near your people or far from them. 12 Their sorrow was doubled; they groaned as they looked back on what had happened. 13 When they learned that their punishment had been of benefit to your people, they realized that it was your work, Lord. 14 The Egyptians had refused to have anything to do with that man who, long before as a baby, had been thrown out and exposed; but as things worked out, they came to be amazed at him. The righteous never suffered a thirst like theirs.
15 Their wickedness misled them into silly ideas, so that they worshiped snakes and other disgusting animals, creatures without any powers of reason. Because of this, you punished them with millions of such animals, 16 and taught them that punishment for sin takes the same form as the sin itself. 17 Your almighty power, Lord, created the world out of material that had no form at all. You could easily have punished those people by sending an invasion of bears or savage lions. 18 You could have created new and terrible animals, that could breathe fire or roar and send out clouds of smoke, or shoot out fearful sparks from their eyes. 19 You could have made animals like these that would not have to attack those people to kill them, but could scare them to death just by looking at them. 20 But this was not necessary. You could have pursued them with your justice or struck them dead at the slightest hint of your power. But you have chosen to measure, count, and weigh everything you do.
God Is Powerful and Merciful
21 You can show your great power any time you wish, and no one can stand up against it. 22 In your sight the whole world is a grain of sand, barely heavy enough to tip a pair of scales, a drop of dew on the ground in the morning. 23 You are powerful enough to do anything, but you are merciful to everyone; you overlook our sins and give us time to repent. 24 You love everything that exists; you do not despise anything that you have made. If you had not liked it, you would not have made it in the first place. 25 How could anything last, if you did not want it to? How could it endure, if you had not created it? 26 You have allowed it all to exist, O Lord, because it is yours, and you love every living thing.
1 She prospered their works in the hand of the holy prophet.
2 They went through the wilderness that was not inhabited, and pitched tents in places where there lay no way.
3 They stood against their enemies, and were avenged of their adversaries.
4 When they were thirsty, they called upon thee, and water was given them out of the flinty rock, and their thirst was quenched out of the hard stone.
5 For by what things their enemies were punished, by the same they in their need were benefited.
6 For instead of a perpetual running river troubled with foul blood,
7 For a manifest reproof of that commandment, whereby the infants were slain, thou gavest unto them abundance of water by a means which they hoped not for:
8 Declaring by that thirst then how thou hadst punished their adversaries.
9 For when they were tried albeit but in mercy chastised, they knew how the ungodly were judged in wrath and tormented, thirsting in another manner than the just.
10 For these thou didst admonish and try, as a father: but the other, as a severe king, thou didst condemn and punish.
11 Whether they were absent or present, they were vexed alike.
12 For a double grief came upon them, and a groaning for the remembrance of things past.
13 For when they heard by their own punishments the other to be benefited, they had some feeling of the Lord.
14 For whom they respected with scorn, when he was long before thrown out at the casting forth of the infants, him in the end, when they saw what came to pass, they admired.
15 But for the foolish devices of their wickedness, wherewith being deceived they worshipped serpents void of reason, and vile beasts, thou didst send a multitude of unreasonable beasts upon them for vengeance;
16 That they might know, that wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished.
17 For thy Almighty hand, that made the world of matter without form, wanted not means to send among them a multitude of bears or fierce lions,
18 Or unknown wild beasts, full of rage, newly created, breathing out either a fiery vapour, or filthy scents of scattered smoke, or shooting horrible sparkles out of their eyes:
19 Whereof not only the harm might dispatch them at once, but also the terrible sight utterly destroy them.
20 Yea, and without these might they have fallen down with one blast, being persecuted of vengeance, and scattered abroad through the breath of thy power: but thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight.
21 For thou canst shew thy great strength at all times when thou wilt; and who may withstand the power of thine arm?
22 For the whole world before thee is as a little grain of the balance, yea, as a drop of the morning dew that falleth down upon the earth.
23 But thou hast mercy upon all; for thou canst do all things, and winkest at the sins of men, because they should amend.
24 For thou lovest all the things that are, and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made: for never wouldest thou have made any thing, if thou hadst hated it.
25 And how could any thing have endured, if it had not been thy will? or been preserved, if not called by thee?
26 But thou sparest all: for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls.