1
O Lord, your acts of judgment are marvelous and hard to explain; that is why people who had not been taught about them went astray.
2
When lawless people imagined that they had your holy nation in their power, they were themselves imprisoned in a long night of darkness. They lay in their own houses, shut off from your eternal care.
3
They thought that their sins had been secret and unnoticed, shielded from view by a dark curtain of forgetfulness, but now they were horribly afraid, confused, and terrified by ghostly forms.
4
Not even the dark corners where they lay could protect them from fear. They were surrounded by horrible noises; grim ghosts with gloomy faces appeared before their eyes.
5
No fire had power to give them light, and the brilliant stars could do nothing to relieve that deathly darkness.
6
There was only a dreadful fire, lit by no human hand, that shone on them, and in their terror they believed that the real world was even worse than the things they imagined.
7
The illusions produced by their magic tricks were put to shame, and all the wisdom they had boasted of came to nothing.