19
Through such works you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind, and you have filled your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.
20
For if you punished with such great care and indulgence the enemies of your servants and those deserving of death, granting them time and opportunity to give up their wickedness,
21
with what strictness you have judged your children, to whose ancestors you gave oaths and covenants full of good promises!
22
So while chastening us you scourge our enemies ten thousand times more, so that, when we judge, we may meditate upon your goodness, and when we are judged, we may expect mercy.
23
Therefore those who lived unrighteously, in a life of folly, you tormented through their own abominations.
24
For they went far astray on the paths of error, accepting as gods those animals that even their enemies despised; they were deceived like foolish infants.
25
Therefore, as though to children who cannot reason, you sent your judgment to mock them.
26
But those who have not heeded the warning of mild rebukes will experience the deserved judgment of God.
27
For when in their suffering they became incensed at those creatures that they had thought to be gods, being punished by means of them, they saw and recognized as the true God the one whom they had before refused to know. Therefore the utmost condemnation came upon them.