1But upon the ungodly there came unto the end indignation without mercy;
For their future also God foreknew,

2How that, having changed their minds to let thy people go,
And having speeded them eagerly on their way,
They would repent themselves and pursue them.

3For while they were yet in the midst of their mourning,
And making lamentation at the graves of the dead,
They drew upon themselves another counsel of folly,
And pursued as fugitives those whom with intreaties they had cast out.

4For ²⁴⁸the doom which they deserved was drawing them ²⁴⁹unto this end,
And it made them forget the things that had befallen them,
That they might fill up the punishment which was yet wanting to their torments,

5And that thy people might ²⁵⁰journey on by a marvellous road,
But they themselves might find a strange death.

6For the whole creation, each part in its several kind, was fashioned again anew,
Ministering to thy several commandments,
That thy ²⁵¹servants might be guarded free from hurt.

7Then was beheld the cloud that shadowed the camp,
And dry land rising up out of what before was water,
Out of the Red sea an unhindered highway,
And a grassy plain out of the violent surge;

8²⁵²By which they passed over with all their hosts,
These that were covered with thy hand,
Having beheld strange marvels.

9For like horses they roamed at large,
And they skipped about like lambs,
Praising thee, O Lord, who wast their deliverer.

10For they still remembered the things that came to pass in the time of their sojourning,
How that instead of ²⁵³bearing ²⁵⁴cattle the land brought forth ²⁵⁵lice,
And instead of ²⁵⁶fish the river cast up a multitude of frogs.

11But afterwards they saw also a new ²⁵⁷race of birds,
When, led on by desire, they asked for luxurious dainties;

12For, to solace them, there came up for them quails from the sea.

13And upon the sinners came the punishments
Not without the tokens that were given ²⁵⁸beforehand by the force of the thunders;
For justly did they suffer through their own wickednesses,
For ²⁵⁹grievous indeed was the hatred which they practised toward guests.

14²⁶⁰For whereas the men of Sodom received not ²⁶¹the strangers when they came among them;
²⁶²The Egyptians made slaves of guests who were their benefactors.

15And not only so, but God shall ²⁶³visit ²⁶⁴the men of Sodom after another sort,
Since they received as enemies them that were aliens;

16Whereas these first welcomed with feastings,
And then afflicted with dreadful toils,
Them that had already shared with them in the same rights.

17And moreover they were stricken with loss of sight
(Even as were those others at the righteous man’s doors),
When, being compassed about with yawning darkness,
They sought every one the passage through his own door.

18For as the notes of a psaltery vary the character of the rhythm,
Even so did the elements, changing their order one with another,
Continuing always the same, each in its several sound;
As may clearly be ²⁶⁵divined from the sight of the things that are come to pass.

19For creatures of the dry land were turned into creatures of the waters,
And creatures that swim trode now upon the earth:

20Fire kept the mastery of its own power in the midst of water,
And water forgat its quenching nature:

21Contrariwise, flames wasted not the flesh of perishable creatures that walked among them;
Neither ²⁶⁶melted they the ²⁶⁷ice-like grains of ambrosial food, that were of nature apt to melt.

22For in all things, O Lord, thou didst magnify thy people,
And thou didst glorify them and not lightly regard them;
Standing by their side in every time and place.