Wisdom of Solomon 18

1 But your holy ones had a very great light. Their enemies heard their voices without seeing their forms, and because the holy ones had not suffered the same things, the enemies called them blessed. 2 They gave thanks because the people they had wronged did not harm them, and they asked pardon for their former hostility. 3 In place of darkness you provided your people a blazing pillar of fire, a guide for an unknown journey and a harmless sun for their glorious journey abroad. 4 Their oppressors deserved to be deprived of light and imprisoned in darkness, because they had kept your children confined—those through whom the imperishable light of the law was to be given to the world.

5 When they planned to kill the infants of your holy ones, one child was exposed and saved to rebuke them. You then took away the multitude of their children and destroyed them together in mighty water. 6 Our ancestors were told beforehand about that night so that, knowing with certainty the oaths they trusted, they might take courage. 7 Your people welcomed both the rescue of the righteous and the destruction of their enemies. 8 By the very means through which you punished our adversaries, you called us to yourself and glorified us.

9 The holy children of good people offered sacrifice in secret. Together they agreed to this divine law: the holy ones would share alike in both good things and dangers. Even then they were singing the praises of their ancestors. 10 The discordant cry of their enemies echoed in reply, and the pitiful sound of lament over children spread abroad. 11 A slave was punished with the same penalty as his master, and an ordinary person suffered the same things as a king. 12 Together they all had countless dead from the same kind of death. The living were not even numerous enough to bury them, because in a single moment their most honored offspring was destroyed.

13 Though sorcery had made them disbelieve everything, at the destruction of the firstborn they acknowledged that this people was God’s son. 14 While gentle silence surrounded everything and the night reached the middle of its swift course, 15 your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the doomed land like a relentless warrior, carrying your unfeigned command like a sharp sword. 16 It stood and filled everything with death; it touched heaven while standing on the earth. 17 Then terrifying dream visions suddenly troubled them, and unexpected fears came upon them. 18 One person thrown down here and another there lay half dead, revealing why each one was dying. 19 The dreams that disturbed them had warned them beforehand, so that they would not perish without knowing why they suffered.

20 The righteous also experienced a taste of death, and a multitude was struck down in the wilderness. But the wrath did not last long. 21 A blameless man hurried forward to defend them, carrying the weapon of his priestly service: prayer and the atonement of incense. He opposed the wrath and ended the disaster, showing that he was your servant. 22 He overcame the fury, not by bodily strength or force of arms, but by his word. He subdued the one who punished by recalling the oaths and covenants made with the ancestors. 23 When the dead had already fallen in heaps on one another, he stood between them, stopped the wrath, and cut off its path to the living. 24 On his full-length robe was the whole world; on four rows of engraved stones were the glories of the ancestors; and on the diadem upon his head was your greatness. [a] 25 The destroyer yielded to these things and feared them, for the mere taste of wrath was enough.