The Lord Provided for His People

¹Wisdom gave his people success under the leadership of Moses, a holy prophet.[#11:1 Moses is alluded to but not explicitly named in the Greek text; also in 11:14.]

²They traveled through uninhabited desert

and pitched their tents in the frontier.

³They withstood attacks by their enemies

and defended themselves against their adversaries.

⁴When they were thirsty, they called upon you, Lord,

and you gave them water from the sheer rock.

Refreshment for their thirst came from hard stone.

⁵The very things that punished their enemies

became a benefit to the Israelites when they needed help.

⁶Their enemies had only an ever-flowing river polluted with blood—

⁷their punishment for ordering that the infants be killed.

But you gave the Israelites abundant water from an unexpected source.

⁸So the thirst of the Israelites

reminded them how you had once punished their enemies.

⁹For when they were tested, though only by merciful discipline,

they learned how the ungodly were judged in anger and tormented.

¹⁰For you tested the Israelites as a father warns his children,

but you examined and condemned the others like a stern king.

The Wicked Were Punished

¹¹For whether they were at home or abroad,

the ungodly were equally distressed.

¹²They were doubly grieved

and groaned at the memory of what had happened.

¹³For when the ungodly heard that their punishments benefited the righteous,

they recognized that the Lord had caused these things to happen.

¹⁴They had scorned and rejected Moses,

whom they had cast out as a child much earlier and left to die.

But in the end they were amazed at him,

for they were thirsty in a different way than the righteous.

¹⁵But the foolish and evil thoughts of the ungodly

deceived them to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals.

In return, you sent hordes of irrational animals to punish them.

¹⁶This was done to teach them that people are punished by the very sins they commit.

¹⁷For your almighty hand,

which created the world out of formless matter,

was able to send upon the ungodly

many bears or fierce lions,

¹⁸or newly created, unknown beasts filled with rage,

breathing out fiery breath,

belching forth acrid smoke,

and flashing terrible sparks from their eyes.

¹⁹Not only could these savage beasts destroy people,

but the very sight of them could scare people to death.

²⁰Even besides these animals, people could be killed by a single breath of the Lord,

when they are pursued by justice and scattered by the breath of your power.

But you have arranged all things by measure, number, and weight.

²¹For you are always able to display your great power.

Who can resist your mighty arm?

²²For the whole world before you is as the smallest grain that tips the scales,

or as a drop of morning dew that lies upon the ground.

The Mercy of the Lord

²³But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things;

you overlook people’s sins so that they might repent.

²⁴For you love everything that exists.

You hate none of the things you have made,

for you would not have made anything you hated.

²⁵And how could anything last if you had not wanted it?

How could it endure if you had not called it into being?

²⁶But you spare all things because they are yours,

O Lord, who loves everything that lives.