智慧書 第 11 章

She prospered their works in the hand of a holy prophet.

They journeyed through a desert without inhabitant, And in trackless regions they pitched their tents.

They withstood enemies, and repelled foes.

They thirsted, and they called upon you, And there was given them water out of the flinty rock, And healing of their thirst out of the hard stone.

For by what things their foes were punished, By these they in their need were benefited.

When the enemy were troubled with clotted blood instead of a river’s ever-flowing fountain,

To rebuke the decree for the slaying of babes, You gave them abundant water beyond all hope,

Having shewn them by the thirst which they had suffered how you did punish the adversaries.

For when they were tried, albeit but in mercy chastened, They learned how the ungodly were tormented, being judged with wrath:

For these, as a father, admonishing them, you did prove; But those, as a stern king, condemning them, you did search out.

Yes and whether they were far off from the righteous or near them, they were alike distressed;

For a double grief took hold on them, And a groaning at the remembrance of things past.

For when they heard that through their own punishments the others had been benefited, They felt the presence of the Lord;

For him who long before was cast forth and exposed they left off mocking: In the last issue of what came to pass they marveled, Having thirsted in another manner than the righteous.

But in requital of the senseless imaginings of their unrighteousness, Wherein they were led astray to worship irrational reptiles and wretched vermin, You did send upon them a multitude of irrational creatures for vengeance;

That they might learn, that by what things a man sins, by these he is punished.

For your all-powerful hand, That created the world out of formless matter, Lacked not means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions,

Or new-created wild beasts, full of rage, of unknown kind, Either breathing out a blast of fiery breath, Or blowing forth from their nostrils noisome smoke, Or flashing dreadful sparkles from their eyes;

Which had power not only to consume them by their violence, But to destroy them even by the terror of their sight.

Yes and without these might they have fallen by a single breath, Being pursued by Justice, and scattered abroad by the breath of your power. But by measure and number and weight you did order all things.

For to be greatly strong is your at all times; And the might of your arm who shall withstand?

Because the whole world before you is as a grain in a balance, And as a drop of dew that at morning comes down upon the earth.

But you have mercy on all men, because you have power to do all things, And you overlookest the sins of men to the end they may repent.

For you love all things that are, And abhor none of the things which you did make; For never would you have formed anything if you did hate it.

And how would anything have endured, except you had willed it? Or that which was not called by you, how would it have been preserved?

But you spare all things, because they are your, O Soverign Lord, you lover of men’s lives;