Wisdom of Solomon, 17

1. For great are thy judgments, and cannot be expressed: therefore unnurtured souls have erred.

1. How great are your purposes and how difficult to explain! People who have not learned about them have gone astray.

2. For when unrighteous men thought to oppress the holy nation; they being shut up in their houses, the prisoners of darkness, and fettered with the bonds of a long night, lay [there] exiled from the eternal providence.

2. While the godless thought they had the holy nation in their power, they themselves were prisoners, captives of a long night, shut in under their own roofs, banished from eternal providence.

3. For while they supposed to lie hid in their secret sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness, being horribly astonished, and troubled with [strange] apparitions.

3. Although they counted on their sins remaining hidden under the veil of forgetfulness, they were scattered and at the same time dismayed and terrified by visions.

4. For neither might the corner that held them keep them from fear: but noises [as of waters] falling down sounded about them, and sad visions appeared unto them with heavy countenances.

4. The dark places where they sheltered could not protect them from fear, they heard horrific noises and were confronted with ghastly and mournful apparitions.

5. No power of the fire might give them light: neither could the bright flames of the stars endure to lighten that horrible night.

5. No fire could give them light, while the sparkling radiance of the stars dared not shine on that horrible night.

6. Only there appeared unto them a fire kindled of itself, very dreadful: for being much terrified, they thought the things which they saw to be worse than the sight they saw not.

6. All that shone for them was an inextinguishable and terrifying fire and, in their terror, when this vision ended, they imagined their situation to be worse than it was.

7. As for the illusions of art magick, they were put down, and their vaunting in wisdom was reproved with disgrace.

7. Their magic arts failed and their pretence to intelligence was utterly confounded;

8. For they, that promised to drive away terrors and troubles from a sick soul, were sick themselves of fear, worthy to be laughed at.

8. those who claimed to eliminate the fear and disturbance of the sick mind were themselves afflicted with a ridiculous fear.

9. For though no terrible thing did fear them; yet being scared with beasts that passed by, and hissing of serpents,

9. Although there was nothing to cause this fear, they were terrified by the buzz of insects and the hiss of snakes;

10. They died for fear, denying that they saw the air, which could of no side be avoided.

10. they died convulsed with fear, refusing to look even at the air from which no one may escape.

11. For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and being pressed with conscience, always forecasteth grievous things.

11. Wickedness is cowardly and is condemned by itself; pursued by conscience it always assumes the worst.

12. For fear is nothing else but a betraying of the succours which reason offereth.

12. For fear is no more than giving up the help that reason is able to give.

13. And the expectation from within, being less, counteth the ignorance more than the cause which bringeth the torment.

13. Inasmuch as this help is lacking interiorly, the unknown cause of one's torments seems greater.

14. But they sleeping the same sleep that night, which was indeed intolerable, and which came upon them out of the bottoms of inevitable hell,

14. So all that night, a night issued from the powerless netherworld that took hold of them while they slept and made everyone powerless,

15. Were partly vexed with monstrous apparitions, and partly fainted, their heart failing them: for a sudden fear, and not looked for, came upon them.

15. they were either pursued by monstrous ghosts or paralyzed by a sudden, unexpected fear.

16. So then whosoever there fell down was straitly kept, shut up in a prison without iron bars,

16. Whoever had fallen lay there, shut in a prison not made of iron.

17. For whether he were husbandman, or shepherd, or a labourer in the field, he was overtaken, and endured that necessity, which could not be avoided: for they were all bound with one chain of darkness.

17. Whether plowman or shepherd or someone working by himself, he had to submit to an inevitable fate;

18. Whether it were a whistling wind, or a melodious noise of birds among the spreading branches, or a pleasing fall of water running violently,

18. all were bound by the same chain of darkness. Everything held them paralyzed by fear: the sighing of the wind and the tuneful song of the birds in spreading branches, the continuous noise of rushing water

19. Or a terrible sound of stones cast down, or a running that could not be seen of skipping beasts, or a roaring voice of most savage wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the hollow mountains; these things made them to swoon for fear.

19. and the terrible crash of falling rocks, the swift, invisible bounding of animals and the terrifying roar of wild beasts, the echo rebounding from the mountains - all was a cause of fear.

20. For the whole world shined with clear light, and none were hindered in their labour:

20. The whole world shone in brilliant light and continued its work without hindrance;

21. Over them only was spread an heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them: but yet were they unto themselves more grievous than the darkness.

21. they alone were covered in the darkness of night, the image of night that would be their lot. But even heavier than the darkness was the burden they were for themselves.