Wisdom of Solomon 17

1Great are Your judgments and hard to explain; Therefore, ignorant souls have gone astray.

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2For when lawless men thought they exercised power Over Your holy nation, They themselves were prisoners of darkness and long night, Shut in under their roofs, exiles from eternal providence.

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3For when they thought they escaped notice With their secret sins behind a curtain of forgetfulness, They were scattered and in a terrible state of shock And thrown into confusion by apparitions.

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4For not even the inmost part of the house that held them Protected them from fear, But troubling noises sounded all around them, And gloomy apparitions with downcast faces appeared to them.

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5No force of fire had the strength to give them light, Nor did the very bright lights of the stars Tarry to illuminate that hateful night.

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6Now a self-acting fire full of fear alone shone through to them, But they were greatly terrified when that apparition was not perceived; So they considered the things they were seeing to be worse.

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7The delusions of their magic were ineffective, And so was the arrogant certainty of their pretense to have insight.

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8For those who promised to drive away The fears and troubles of a sick soul Were themselves sick with an absurd timidity.

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9For even if nothing dreadful frightened them, Yet, scared by the passing of beasts and hissing of serpents, They perished full of fear, Even refusing to look at the air, which could not be avoided.

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10For evil is a cowardly thing, And condemned by its own witness; And tormented by conscience, It always welcomes things full of trouble.

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11For fear is nothing but the betrayal Of the assistance that comes from reasoning;

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12And the expectation from within considers itself to be weaker Than ignorance of the cause which supplies the torment.

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13But they slept the same sleep throughout the night, Which was actually powerless, And which assaulted them from the inmost parts of a powerless Hades.

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14They were driven by the monsters of apparitions And were paralyzed by the betrayal of their soul; For sudden and unexpected fear was poured out on them.

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15So then whoever was there fell down And thus was kept shut up in a prison not made of iron.

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16For whether someone was a farmer or a shepherd Or a worker who labored in the wilderness, He was overtaken by force and endured inescapable punishment; For all were bound with one chain of darkness.

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17Whether there came a whistling wind, Or the musical sound of birds in wide-spreading branches, Or the motion of violently rushing water, Or the hard crash of rocks thrown down,

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18Or the unseen running of leaping animals, Or the roar of fierce wild animals, Or an echo reflected from the hollow of mountains, It paralyzed them with terror.

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19For the whole world was illumined with bright light And embraced unhindered works,

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20While over those men alone heavy night was spread, An image of darkness that was about to receive them; But they were heavier than darkness to themselves.

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