Wisdom of Solomon 17

1For your judgments are great and hard to describe; therefore undisciplined souls went astray.

2For when lawless men supposed that they were oppressing a holy nation, they lay imprisoned by darkness and bound fast by a long night, shut in under their roofs, fugitives from eternal providence.

3For while they thought to remain hidden in their secret sins, they were scattered under the dark veil of forgetfulness, terribly aghast and shaken by apparitions.

4For not even the inner chamber that held them kept them free from fear, but sounds that troubled them rang around them, and gloomy apparitions with unsmiling faces appeared.

5And no force of fire prevailed to give light, nor did the brilliant flames of the stars endure to illumine that dreadful night.

6Only a self-kindled fire, full of fear, appeared to them; and, being terrified by that unseen appearance, they considered the things they saw to be worse.

7And the tricks of magical art were laid low, and the boast of wisdom was disgracefully exposed.

8For those who promised to drive away fears and disturbances from a sick soul were themselves sick with a ridiculous fear.

9For even if nothing terrifying frightened them, they were panic-stricken by the passing by of wild animals and the hissing of snakes,

10They were being destroyed, trembling and refusing even to look at the air, though there was nowhere to flee from it.

11For wickedness is especially cowardly, being condemned by itself; and, being pressed by conscience, it always assumes the worst.

12For fear is nothing but the betrayal of the helps that come from reason.

13But expectation, being weaker from within, counts ignorance of the cause that brings the torment as a greater thing.

14But they, while sleeping the same sleep, with the truly powerless night having come upon them from the depths of powerless Hades,

15Some were driven by terrifying apparitions, and others were paralyzed by the betrayal of their soul; for sudden and unexpected fear came upon them.

16Then, whoever it might have been there, when he fell down, was kept under guard, shut up in that ironless prison.

17For if someone was a farmer, or a shepherd, or a worker at toils in the wilderness, once seized, he remained under the inescapable necessity.

18For all were bound with one chain of darkness—whether it was the whistling of wind, or the pleasant sound of birds among the leafy branches, or the rushing force of flowing water,

19or a harsh crash of rocks falling down, or the unseen rush of leaping animals, or the sound of the roaring of most savage beasts, or an echo thrown back from the hollow of the mountains, paralyzed them with fear.

20For the whole world was illuminated with bright light and was occupied with unhindered works;

21But upon those alone heavy night was imposed, an image of the darkness that was about to receive them; yet they were heavier to themselves than darkness.

26so that your children, whom you loved, might learn, O Lord, that it is not the produce of crops that nourishes man, but your word preserves those who trust in you.

27For what was not destroyed by fire simply melted when warmed by a brief ray of the sun,

28so that it might be known that one must rise before the sun to give thanks to you, and at the dawning of the light make petition to you.

29For the hope of the ungrateful will melt like wintry frost, and will run off like useless water.