16
All who fell into that kind of place became like prisoners, locked up in cells without metal bars.
17
Whether they were farmers or shepherds or laborers toiling alone in the desert, the same fate overtook them all, and they were all bound in the darkness as by a single chain.
18
Whether it was the whispering of the wind, or the sound of birds singing in the thick branches of trees, or the rhythm of rushing water,
19
or the crashing down of rocks from a high cliff, or the unseen scurrying of little animals, or the howling of the most frightening of beasts, or an echo from the valleys between the hills; whatever it was, it frightened them so much that they were completely paralyzed.
20
So while bright sunlight lit up the rest of the world, and people and things went about their ordered, active lives,