1But for your holy ones there was a very great light. The Egyptians, hearing their voice but not seeing their form, counted them blessed because they had not also suffered.
2They gave thanks that, though previously wronged, they were not doing harm, and they begged for the favor of being separated.
3In its place, you provided a pillar of blazing fire: a guide for an unknown journey, and a harmless sun for their glorious sojourn.
4For they deserved to be deprived of light and imprisoned in darkness—those who had kept your sons confined, through whom the imperishable light of the law was about to be given to the world.
5When they resolved to kill the infants of the holy ones—and one child was exposed and saved—you, for a rebuke, took away their multitude of children and destroyed them all together in a mighty water.
6That night was made known beforehand to our fathers, so that, knowing with certainty the oaths in which they had put their trust, they might take courage.
7The salvation of the righteous and the destruction of their enemies was expected by your people.
8For in the same way that you punished our adversaries, you glorified us by calling us to yourself.
9For the holy children were secretly offering sacrifices and with one accord established the divine law—that the saints would share alike in the same blessings and dangers—while already chanting the praises of the fathers.
10But in contrast, the discordant cry of the enemies echoed, and a pitiful lament for their mourned children was carried abroad.
11By a like judgment, slave was punished together with master, and commoner suffered the same things as the king.
12All together, by one form of death, they had countless dead, for the living were not even enough to bury them, since in a single moment their most honored offspring had been destroyed.
13For though they had disbelieved everything on account of their magic, upon the destruction of the firstborn they acknowledged the people to be God’s son.
14For when tranquil silence encompassed all things and night in its swift course was at its midpoint,
15your all-powerful word from heaven, from the royal thrones, leaped down as a stern warrior into the midst of the doomed land,
16carrying your unswerving command as a sharp sword. And it stood and filled all things with death; it touched heaven, yet stood upon the earth.
17Then suddenly visions of dreams terribly terrified them, and unexpected fears assailed them.
18And one person, thrown down here, another there, half-dead, made known the reason why he was dying.
19For the dreams that had troubled them foretold this, so that they would not perish ignorant of why they were suffering evil.
20But a trial of death touched the righteous also, and a destruction of the multitude occurred in the wilderness; yet the wrath did not last long.
21For a blameless man hurried to be their champion, bringing the weapon of his own ministry—prayer and the atonement of incense. He withstood the anger and put an end to the calamity, showing that he is your servant.
22He overcame the affliction not by strength of body or by force of arms, but by a word he subdued the punisher, reminding him of the oaths and covenants made with the fathers.
23For when the dead had already fallen in heaps upon one another, he stood between and checked the wrath, and cut off its path to the living.
24For on his full-length robe was the whole world, and the glories of the fathers were on the four rows of carved stones, and your majesty was on the diadem of his head.
25To these the destroyer yielded; these he feared, for the mere taste of wrath was sufficient.
Open in the interactive reader →