The Book of Wisdom or The Wisdom of Solomon 17

1For great are your judgements, and hard to interpret; Or, set forth 2For when lawless men had supposed that they held a holy nation in their power, themselves, prisoners of darkness, and bound in the fetters of a long night, 3For while they thought that they were unseen in their secret sins, sundered one from another by a dark curtain of forgetfulness, Gr. scattered by. 4For neither did the dark recesses that held them guard them from fears, Gr. the recess. rushing down rang around them, Some authorities read troubling them sore. 5And no force of fire prevailed to give them light, 6But only there appeared to them the glimmering of a fire self-kindled, full of fear; 7And they lay Some authorities read And the mockeries of magic are lay low, and shameful was the rebuke etc. helpless, made the sport of magic are, 8For those who promised to drive away terrors and troublings from a sick soul, themselves sick with a ludicrous fearfulness: 9For even if no troublous thing affrighted them, 10they perished for very trembling, Or, trembling, and refusing to 11For wickedness, condemned by a witness within, is a coward thing, This is the probable sense: the Greek text is perhaps slightly corrupt. forecasts the worst Most authorities read has added. lot: 12For fear is nothing else but a surrender of the help which reason offers; 13And from within the heart the expectation of them being less 14But they, all through the night which was powerless indeed, All sleeping the same sleep, 15Now were haunted by monstrous apparitions, came upon them. Some authorities read was poured upon them. 16So then every man, whoever it might be, sinking down in his place, Gr. there. 17For whether he were a husbandman, or a shepherd, 18Whether there were a whistling wind, 19Or a harsh crashing of rocks hurled down, the hollows of the mountains, Or, a hollow All these things paralysed them with terror. 20For the whole world beside was enlightened with clear light, 21While over them alone was spread a heavy night,