1She prospered their works in the hand of a holy prophet.

2They journeyed through a desert without inhabitant,
And in trackless regions they pitched their tents.

3They withstood enemies, and repelled foes.

4They thirsted, and they called upon thee,
And there was given them water out of the flinty rock,
And healing of their thirst out of the hard stone.

5For by what things their foes were punished,
By these they in their need were benefited.

6When the enemy were troubled with clotted blood instead of a river’s ever-flowing fountain,

7To rebuke the decree for the slaying of babes,
Thou gavest them abundant water beyond all hope,

8Having shown them by the thirst which they had suffered how thou didst punish the adversaries.

9For when they were tried, albeit but in mercy chastened,
They learned how the ungodly were tormented, being judged with wrath:

10For these, as a father, admonishing them, thou didst prove;
But those, as a stern king, condemning them, thou didst search out.

11Yea and whether they were far off from the righteous or near them, they were alike distressed;

12For a double grief took hold on them,
And a groaning at the remembrance of things past.

13For when they heard that through their own punishments the others had been benefited,
They felt the presence of the Lord;

14For him who long before was cast forth and exposed they left off mocking:
In the last issue of what came to pass they marveled,
Having thirsted in another manner than the righteous.

15But in requital of the senseless imaginings of their unrighteousness,
Wherein they were led astray to worship irrational reptiles and wretched vermin,
Thou didst send upon them a multitude of irrational creatures for vengeance;

16That they might learn, that by what things a man sinneth, by these he is punished.

17For thine all-powerful hand,
That created the world out of formless matter,
Lacked not means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions,

18Or new-created wild beasts, full of rage, of unknown kind,
Either breathing out a blast of fiery breath,
Or blowing forth from their nostrils noisome smoke,
Or flashing dreadful sparkles from their eyes;

19Which had power not only to consume them by their violence,
But to destroy them even by the terror of their sight.

20Yea and without these might they have fallen by a single breath,
Being pursued by Justice, and scattered abroad by the breath of thy power.
But by measure and number and weight thou didst order all things.

21For to be greatly strong is thine at all times;
And the might of thine arm who shall withstand?

22Because the whole world before thee is as a grain in a balance,
And as a drop of dew that at morning cometh down upon the earth.

23But thou hast mercy on all men, because thou hast power to do all things,
And thou overlookest the sins of men to the end they may repent.

24For thou lovest all things that are,
And abhorrest none of the things which thou didst make;
For never wouldest thou have formed anything if thou didst hate it.

25And how would anything have endured, except thou hadst willed it?
Or that which was not called by thee, how would it have been preserved?

26But thou sparest all things, because they are thine,
O Sovereign Lord, thou lover of men’s lives;