The Suicidal Stupidity of the Egyptians
1 But the godless continued to feel your pitiless anger until the very end. You knew what they would do before they did it. 2 You knew that even though they let your people go and made them leave quickly, they would change their minds and pursue them. 3-4 While the Egyptians were still mourning at the graves of their dead, they forgot why all this had happened, and they foolishly decided that the people they had begged to leave were runaways. So they chased after them. They were led into this as part of the punishment they deserved, so that they would suffer the rest of the torments they were due to receive. 5 They were to meet a strange death, while your people continued on their miraculous journey.
God Guides and Protects His People
6 The whole nature of the universe was changed at your command so that your people would not be harmed. 7 They saw the cloud over their camp and dry land where water had been. There was a grass-covered plain between the stormy waves of the Red Sea, making it easy for them to cross over. 8 All your people, under your protection, saw this miracle and went across. 9 They pranced about like horses let out to pasture; they skipped about like lambs and praised you, Lord, for saving them. 10 They still remembered what life had been like when they were slaves—how the earth bred gnats instead of cattle, how the river produced huge numbers of frogs instead of fish. 11-12 Later, when they desperately wanted better food, quails came up from the sea to satisfy their hunger. The quail was a bird they had never seen before.
The Punishment of the Egyptians
13 But violent thunder gave warning of the punishment that was coming on those sinners. They suffered a well-deserved punishment for their great wickedness. No nation had ever hated strangers so bitterly. 14 Other people had been known to refuse welcome to strangers who came to them, but these people made slaves of those who were their guests and who had shown them kindness. 15 Every nation will be punished if it does not welcome foreigners, 16 but these people, who had earlier welcomed the foreigners with happy celebrations and treated them as equals, later made them suffer cruelly. 17 These people were also struck with blindness, like the men of Sodom who came to the door of that righteous man Lot. They found themselves in total darkness, as each one groped around to find his own door.
God's Miraculous Power
18 On a harp each string keeps its own pitch, but each sound can be combined with others to make different melodies. That is how it was in those days, when the very elements entered into new combinations. Look at what happened! 19 Land animals took to the water, and swimming creatures came up on the land. 20 Fire burned even in water, which could not put it out. 21 And yet the flames could not burn the flesh of the perishable creatures walking in them and did not melt that heavenly food that would ordinarily have melted like frost.
22 Lord, you have made your people great—glorious in all respects. You have never neglected them. You have given them help, always, everywhere.
1 As for the ungodly, wrath came upon them without mercy unto the end: for he knew before what they would do;
2 How that having given them leave to depart, and sent them hastily away, they would repent and pursue them.
3 For whilst they were yet mourning and making lamentation at the graves of the dead, they added another foolish device, and pursued them as fugitives, whom they had intreated to be gone.
4 For the destiny, whereof they were worthy, drew them unto this end, and made them forget the things that had already happened, that they might fulfil the punishment which was wanting to their torments:
5 And that thy people might pass a wonderful way: but they might find a strange death.
6 For the whole creature in his proper kind was fashioned again anew, serving the peculiar commandments that were given unto them, that thy children might be kept without hurt:
7 As namely, a cloud shadowing the camp; and where water stood before, dry land appeared; and out of the Red sea a way without impediment; and out of the violent stream a green field:
8 Wherethrough all the people went that were defended with thy hand, seeing thy marvellous strange wonders.
9 For they went at large like horses, and leaped like lambs, praising thee, O Lord, who hadst delivered them.
10 For they were yet mindful of the things that were done while they sojourned in the strange land, how the ground brought forth flies instead of cattle, and how the river cast up a multitude of frogs instead of fishes.
11 But afterwards they saw a new generation of fowls, when, being led with their appetite, they asked delicate meats.
12 For quails came up unto them from the sea for their contentment.
13 And punishments came upon the sinners not without former signs by the force of thunders: for they suffered justly according to their own wickedness, insomuch as they used a more hard and hateful behaviour toward strangers.
14 For the Sodomites did not receive those, whom they knew not when they came: but these brought friends into bondage, that had well deserved of them.
15 And not only so, but peradventure some respect shall be had of those, because they used strangers not friendly:
16 But these very grievously afflicted them, whom they had received with feastings, and were already made partakers of the same laws with them.
17 Therefore even with blindness were these stricken, as those were at the doors of the righteous man: when, being compassed about with horrible great darkness, every one sought the passage of his own doors.
18 For the elements were changed in themselves by a kind of harmony, like as in a psaltery notes change the name of the tune, and yet are always sounds; which may well be perceived by the sight of the things that have been done.
19 For earthly things were turned into watery, and the things, that before swam in the water, now went upon the ground.
20 The fire had power in the water, forgetting his own virtue: and the water forgat his own quenching nature.
21 On the other side, the flames wasted not the flesh of the corruptible living things, though they walked therein; neither melted they the icy kind of heavenly meat that was of nature apt to melt.
22 For in all things, O Lord, thou didst magnify thy people, and glorify them, neither didst thou lightly regard them: but didst assist them in every time and place.