5
their merciless slaughter of children, and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood. These initiates from the midst of a heathen cult,
6
these parents who murder helpless lives, thou didst will to destroy by the hands of our fathers,
7
that the land most precious of all to thee might receive a worthy colony of the servants of God.
8
But even these thou didst spare, since they were but men, and didst send wasps as forerunners of thy army, to destroy them little by little,
9
though thou wast not unable to give the ungodly into the hands of the righteous in battle, or to destroy them at one blow by dread wild beasts or thy stern word.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.