Wisdom of Solomon 19

1But for the ungodly, merciless wrath came upon them to the very end; for he knew beforehand both them and what was going to happen,

2because after they themselves had turned back from letting them go, and had sent them on with urgency, they would pursue them, having changed their minds.

3For while they still had their mourning in their hands and were still lamenting at the graves of the dead, they took up another plan of folly, and those whom they had driven out with pleading, these they pursued as fugitives.

4For a deserved necessity dragged them to this end, and cast forgetfulness of what had happened upon them, so that they might beforehand complete the punishment lacking in their torments.

5and your people experienced a marvelous journey, but they found a strange death.

6For the whole creation, in its own kind, was formed anew from above, serving your own commands, so that your children might be kept unharmed.

7The cloud that overshadowed the camp was seen, and from the water that had stood before them dry land emerged; from the Red Sea came an unhindered road, and from the violent surge a grassy plain.

8through which those sheltered by your hand passed, the whole nation, having seen marvelous wonders.

9For they grazed like horses, and skipped about like lambs, praising you, Lord, the one who delivered them.

10For they still remembered the things in their time as foreigners: how, instead of the breeding of animals, the land brought forth gnats, and instead of creatures of the water, the river spewed out a multitude of frogs.

11Later they also saw a new generation of birds, when, driven by craving, they asked for delicacies of luxury;

12For quail came up from the sea to comfort them,

13And punishments came upon the sinners, not without the evidence of what had happened in the violence of the thunderbolts; for they justly suffered for their own wicked acts, because they practiced a more grievous hatred of strangers.

14For they did not welcome those who were present as strangers, but these enslaved foreign benefactors.

15And not only that, but there will be an inspection of them, because they received the foreigners with hostility.

16But those who had welcomed with festivities those who had already shared in the same rights afflicted them with terrible sufferings.

17And they also were struck with blindness, like those at the doors of the righteous man, when, wrapped in deep darkness, each one kept seeking the way through his own door.

18For the elements, changing among themselves, as in a harp the notes of the melody alter the name, while always remaining in the sound, as may be accurately inferred from the sight of what happened.

19For land animals were changed into creatures of the water, and swimming creatures moved onto the land.

20Fire was strong in water beyond its own power, and water forgot its extinguishing power;

21Flames, on the contrary, did not wither the flesh of the perishable living creatures that walked among them, nor did they melt the meltable, crystal-like kind of ambrosial food.

22For in every way, Lord, you magnified your people and glorified them, and you did not overlook them, standing by them at every time and place.