17
For when men will not believe that thou art of a full power, thou shewest thy strength, and among them that know it thou makest their boldness manifest.
18
But thou, mastering thy power, judgest with equity, and orderest us with great favour: for thou mayest use power when thou wilt.
19
But by such works hast thou taught thy people that the just man should be merciful, and hast made thy children to be of a good hope that thou givest repentance for sins.
20
For if thou didst punish the enemies of thy children, and the condemned to death, with such deliberation, giving them time and place, whereby they might be delivered from their malice:
21
With how great circumspection didst thou judge thine own sons, unto whose fathers thou hast sworn, and made covenants of good promises?
22
Therefore, whereas thou dost chasten us, thou scourgest our enemies a thousand times more, to the intent that, when we judge, we should carefully think of thy goodness, and when we ourselves are judged, we should look for mercy.
23
Wherefore, whereas men have lived dissolutely and unrighteously, thou hast tormented them with their own abominations.
24
For they went astray very far in the ways of error, and held them for gods, which even among the beasts of their enemies were despised, being deceived, as children of no understanding.
25
Therefore unto them, as to children without the use of reason, thou didst send a judgment to mock them.
26
But they that would not be reformed by that correction, wherein he dallied with them, shall feel a judgment worthy of God.
27
For, look, for what things they grudged, when they were punished, that is, for them whom they thought to be gods; now being punished in them, when they saw it, they acknowledged him to be the true God, whom before they denied to know: and therefore came extreme damnation upon them.