Verse 15: 'Even though He should slay me, in Him will I hope.' 47. The just man praises God even in adversities. — The virtue of patience is never in prosperity. But he is truly patient who is both ground down by adversities, and yet is not bent from the rectitude of his hope. For concerning the sense of the reprobate it is written: 'And he will praise You when You do him good' (Ps. 49:18). In this, then, the just mind is distinguished from the unjust, that it confesses the praise of Almighty God even amid adversities, that it is not broken with its goods, nor falls with the fall of outward glory, but rather in this shows what it will be with its goods — that which stands the more robust even without goods. There follows: