10
For you tested them as a parent does in warning, but you examined the ungodly as a stern king does in condemnation.
11
Whether absent or present, they were equally distressed,
12
for a twofold grief possessed them, and a groaning at the memory of what had occurred.
13
For when they heard that through their own punishments the righteous had received benefit, they perceived it was the Lord's doing.
14
For though they had mockingly rejected him who long before had been cast out and exposed, at the end of the events they marveled at him, when they felt thirst in a different way from the righteous.
15
In return for their foolish and wicked thoughts, which led them astray to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals, you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them,
16
so that they might learn that one is punished by the very things by which one sins.
17
For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter, did not lack the means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or bold lions,
18
or newly-created unknown beasts full of rage, or such as breathe out fiery breath, or belch forth a thick pall of smoke, or flash terrible sparks from their eyes;
19
not only could the harm they did destroy people, but the mere sight of them could kill by fright.
20
Even apart from these, people could fall at a single breath when pursued by justice and scattered by the breath of your power. But you have arranged all things by measure and number and weight.