1
Great are your judgments and hard to describe; therefore uninstructed souls have gone astray.
2
For when lawless people supposed that they held the holy nation in their power, they themselves lay as captives of darkness and prisoners of long night, shut in under their roofs, exiles from eternal providence.
3
For thinking that in their secret sins they were unobserved behind a dark curtain of forgetfulness, they were scattered, terribly alarmed, and appalled by specters.
4
For not even the inner chamber that held them protected them from fear, but terrifying sounds rang out around them, and dismal phantoms with gloomy faces appeared.
5
And no power of fire was able to give light, nor did the brilliant flames of the stars avail to illumine that hateful night.
6
Nothing was shining through to them except a dreadful, self-kindled fire, and in terror they deemed the things that they saw to be worse than that unseen appearance.
[a].
Other ancient authorities read [unobserved, they were darkened behind a dark curtain of forgetfulness, terribly]
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, 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.