Ephraim: The Nisibene Hymns
Nisibene Hymn 11: Your Chastening Is Like a Mother
Your chastening is like a mother to us in our infancy;
her rebuke is merciful, for you have restrained
the children from folly, and they have been made wise!
Refrain: Glory to your justice!
Let us search out your justice; for who is able
to measure its help? For by it the unchaste
are often made chaste.
Often your hand, O my Lord, has made the sick whole;
for it is the secret healer of their diseases
and the fountain of their life.
Very gently the finger of your justice,
in love and compassion, touches the wounds
of the one who is to be healed.
Very mild and merciful to the wise is her cutting;
her sharp remedy, in its mighty love,
consumes the corrupt part.
Very welcome is her wrath to the one who is discerning;
but her remedies are hated by the fool, who takes delight
in the trouble of his limbs.
Very eager is she to bind up the cut she has made;
when she has struck she pities, so that between these two
she may bring about healing.
Very welcome is her wrath, and pleasant her anger,
and sweet her bitterness, sweetening bitter things
so that they may be made pleasant.
Your indulgence toward the careless is a cause of negligence;
your rod among the lazy is a cause of profit,
so that they become like traders.
The cause of our affliction is your justice;
the cause of our carelessness is your graciousness,
for our understanding has turned foolish.
Pharaoh hardened himself because of your graciousness;
for when the plagues were stopped, his cruelty grew strong,
and he went back on his promises.
Justice repaid him, because he lied greatly against her,
even against Grace, her freeborn sister; and she restrained him again,
so that he would not provoke again.
Rebuke, O my Lord, my guide, for it has been false like Egypt;
my prayers bear witness that I am not like her,
for I have not forsaken your door.
Let your cross, O my Lord, which stands in my breaches that lie open,
repair also the breaches that are hidden; for instead of those outside,
those within have split me apart!
A sea has broken through and thrown down the watchtower in which I had triumphed.
Iniquity has dared to set up a temple in which I am shamed;
its drink offering chokes me.
My persecutors have heard my prayers on my walls;
the sun and his worshipers are ashamed of their magicians,
for I have triumphed by your cross.
All creatures cried out when they saw the struggle,
while Truth fought with falsehood on my battered walls
and was crowned conqueror.
The force of Truth chastened falsehood;
in its chastening falsehood felt Truth,
and through its own sins it earned her victory.
I am greatly alarmed; for since my deliverance
the honored and the mighty, who were devoted to my altar,
have built high places in me.
My seven senses, O my Lord, even if they had been fountains of tears,
my tears would still have been too few
to lament our ruin.
The streets that were in sackcloth and ashes cried out,
disturbed by the play, like the play there was
in the wilderness before the calf.
Poison seeks out and puts on the beauty of lilies;
and though their buds may conceal it, and it lies hidden in disguise,
it blossoms in their bitter flowers.