Wisdom of Solomon

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

They journeyed through an uninhabited wilderness and pitched their tents in untrodden places.

They withstood their enemies and fought off their foes.

When they were thirsty, they called upon you, and water was given them out of flinty rock, and from hard stone a remedy for their thirst.

For through the very things by which their enemies were punished, they themselves received benefit in their need.

While their enemies were troubled, instead of a river of flowing water, turbulent blood,

as a rebuttal to the decree to kill the infants, you gave them abundant water unexpectedly,

showing through their thirst at that time how you punished their enemies.

For when they were tried, though they were being disciplined in mercy, they learned how the ungodly were tormented when judged in wrath.

For you tested them as a parent does, but you examined the ungodly as a stern king does.

Whether absent or present, they were troubled alike,

for a twofold grief seized them, and a groaning at the memory of what had occurred.

For when they heard that through their own punishments the others were benefiting, they felt the hand of the Lord.

Though they had mockingly rejected him who long before had been cast out and exposed, they were amazed at the end of the event, having felt a thirst different from that of the righteous.

In return for their foolish and wicked thoughts, which led them astray to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals, you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures for punishment,

so that they might learn that one is punished by the very things by which one sins.

For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter, did not lack the means to send upon them a multitude of bears or bold lions,

or newly created unknown beasts full of rage, either breathing out fiery breath, or emitting thick smoke, or flashing terrible sparks from their eyes,

not only able to destroy them by their violence, but even to kill them by the fright of their appearance.

Even without these, they could have fallen by a single breath when pursued by justice and scattered by the breath of your power. But you have arranged all things by measure and number and weight.

For it is always in your power to show great strength, and who can withstand the might of your arm?

Because the whole world before you is like a speck that tips the scales and like a drop of morning dew that falls on the ground.

But you are merciful to all, for you can do all things, and you overlook people's sins, so that they may repent.

For you love all that exists and detest none of the things that you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.

How would anything have endured unless you had willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?

You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.