The Plague of Darkness

¹Your judgments are great and difficult to describe;

so the unlearned have gone astray.

²The wicked Egyptians thought they held the holy nation in their power,[#17:2 The Egyptians are alluded to but not explicitly named in the Greek text; also in 17:6, 10, 14, 21.]

but they themselves were captives of darkness and prisoners of unending night.

They were confined under their own roofs and exiled from eternal providence.

³While they thought their secret sins were concealed

behind a dark curtain of forgetfulness,

they were scattered and terrified;

they were frightened by apparitions.

⁴Not even the most secluded room they hid in protected them from fear.

Terrifying noises echoed around them

and somber, gloomy-faced phantoms appeared to them.

⁵No fire, no matter how intense, could give them light,

and the bright glow of the stars

were unable to illuminate that gloomy night.

⁶Nothing gave the Egyptians light

except a spontaneous, dreadful flash.

In their fear, they thought they saw things

even worse than the things they had imagined.

⁷The tricks of their magic art were humbled,

and the wisdom they boasted about was scornfully rebuked.

⁸Those who promised to drive away the fears and troubles of a sick soul

were now sick themselves with ludicrous fear.

⁹No terrible thing actually attacked them,

but they were frightened by hissing serpents and wild animals passing by.

¹⁰The Egyptians died of fright

as they futilely tried even to ignore the very air around them.

¹¹For wickedness is cowardly and condemns itself

because a troubled conscience always assumes the worst.

¹²Fear is nothing but the surrender of assistance from reason.

¹³And after hope has been defeated within,

people imagine the cause of their torment to be worse than it actually is.

¹⁴That terrifying night was really powerless,

since it came from the powerless place of the dead,

but the Egyptians all slept in terror.

¹⁵They were chased by monstrous apparitions,

yet they were also paralyzed by their fainting souls,

for sudden and unexpected fear overwhelmed them.

¹⁶People everywhere fell down

and were shut up in a prison without bars.

¹⁷Whether they were farmers or shepherds

or people working in the desert,

they were suddenly snatched up and suffered an inescapable fate.

They were all bound together with a chain of darkness.

¹⁸Whether it was the whistling wind,

or the melodious sound of birds in the trees,

or the steady noise of rushing water,

¹⁹or the mighty crash of rocks hurled down,

or the sound of animals running along unseen,

or the roar of the most savage beasts,

or an echo rebounding from a mountain hollow—

the noise paralyzed them with fear.

²⁰The rest of the world was illumined with bright light,

and people went about their work unhindered.

²¹But a dark night descended upon the Egyptians alone,

an image of another darkness that would one day come upon them.

Yet more heavy than this darkness was the burden they were to themselves.