Wisdom of Solomon, 17

1. Yes, your judgements are great and impenetrable, which is why uninstructed souls have gone astray.

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

2. While the wicked supposed they had a holy nation in their power, they themselves lay prisoners of the dark, in the fetters of long night, confined under their own roofs, banished from eternal providence.

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.

3. While they thought to remain unnoticed with their secret sins, curtained by dark forgetfulness, they were scattered in fearful dismay, terrified by apparitions.

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.

4. The hiding place sheltering them could not ward off their fear; terrifying noises echoed round them; and gloomy, grim-faced spectres haunted them.

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.

5. No fire had power enough to give them light, nor could the brightly blazing stars illuminate that dreadful night.

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

6. The only light for them was a great, spontaneous blaze -- a fearful sight to see! And in their terror, once that sight had vanished, they thought what they had seen more terrible than ever.

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.

7. Their magical illusions were powerless now, and their claims to intelligence were ignominiously confounded;

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

8. for those who promised to drive out fears and disorders from sick souls were now themselves sick with ludicrous fright.

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.

9. Even when there was nothing frightful to scare them, the vermin creeping past and the hissing of reptiles filled them with panic;

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

10. they died convulsed with fright, refusing even to look at empty air, which cannot be eluded anyhow!

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

11. Wickedness is confessedly very cowardly, and it condemns itself; under pressure from conscience it always assumes the worst.

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

12. Fear, indeed, is nothing other than the failure of the help offered by reason;

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

13. the less you rely within yourself on this, the more alarming it is not to know the cause of your suffering.

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

14. And they, all locked in the same sleep, while that darkness lasted -- which was in fact quite powerless and had issued from the depths of equally powerless Hades-

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,

15. were now chased by monstrous spectres, now paralysed by the fainting of their souls; for a sudden, unexpected terror had attacked them.

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.

16. And thus, whoever it might be that fell there stayed clamped to the spot in this prison without bars.

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

17. Whether he was ploughman or shepherd, or somebody at work in the desert, he was still overtaken and suffered the inevitable fate, for all had been bound by the one same chain of darkness.

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.

18. The soughing of the wind, the tuneful noise of birds in the spreading branches, the measured beat of water in its powerful course, the headlong din of rocks cascading down,

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,

19. the unseen course of bounding animals, the roaring of the most savage of wild beasts, the echo rebounding from the clefts in the mountains, all held them paralysed with fear.

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.

20. For the whole world shone with the light of day and, unhindered, went about its work;

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

21. over them alone there spread a heavy darkness, image of the dark that would receive them. But heavier than the darkness was the burden they were to themselves.

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.