Anonymous (Septuagint) · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| He made their works prosper by the hand of a holy prophet.
2| They journeyed through an uninhabited wilderness, and pitched their tents in trackless places.
3| They stood against enemies, and fought off foes.
4| They thirsted, and called upon you, and out of the sheer rock they received water, and a remedy for their thirst out of hard stone.
5| For by the very things through which their enemies were punished, they themselves, in their need, were benefited.
6| Instead of the ever-flowing river's fountain, troubled with clotted blood
7| in rebuke of the decree that killed the infants, you gave them abundant water beyond hope,
8| showing by the thirst they suffered then how you punished their adversaries.
9| For when they were tested, though disciplined in mercy, they came to know how the ungodly, judged in wrath, were tormented.
10| These you tested as a father giving warning, but those you examined as a stern king condemning them.
11| And whether far off or near, they were worn out alike;
12| for a double grief and a groaning came upon them, at the memory of things past.
13| For when they heard that through their own punishments the others were being benefited, they perceived the Lord.
14| For the one they had once cast off and exposed, mocking him, they now marveled at, when at the end of events it turned out otherwise; for they suffered a thirst unlike that of the righteous.
15| And in return for their foolish and wicked reasonings, by which, going astray, they worshiped mindless reptiles and worthless beasts, you sent upon them a multitude of mindless creatures for vengeance,
16| that they might learn that a man is punished by the very things by which he sins.
17| For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter, was not without means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or bold lions,
18| or newly-created beasts full of rage, unknown before, breathing out fiery breath, or blowing out billows of smoke, or flashing terrible sparks from their eyes,
19| whose harm alone could have crushed them utterly, and whose very appearance, by its terror, could have destroyed them.
20| And even apart from these, they could have fallen by a single breath, pursued by justice and scattered by the breath of your power; but you arranged all things by measure and number and weight.
21| For to be greatly strong is always in your power, and who can withstand the might of your arm?
22| Because the whole world before you is like a grain that tips the scale, and like a drop of morning dew that falls upon the earth.
23| But you show mercy to all, because you can do all things, and you overlook the sins of men, that they may repent.
24| For you love all things that exist, and abhor none of the things you have made; for you would not have fashioned anything you hated.
25| And how could anything have endured, had you not willed it? Or how could what was not called forth by you have been preserved?
26| But you spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord who loves the living.