¹ Foolish by nature were all who were in ignorance of God,
    and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing the one who is,^[b]
    and from studying the works did not discern the artisan;^(A)
2 Instead either fire, or wind, or the swift air,
    or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water,
    or the luminaries of heaven, the governors^[c] of the world, they considered gods.^(B)
3 Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,
    let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;
    for the original source of beauty fashioned them.^(C)
4 Or if they were struck by their might and energy,
    let them realize from these things how much more powerful is the one who made them.^(D)
5 For from the greatness and the beauty of created things
    their original author, by analogy, is seen.
⁶ But yet, for these the blame is less;^[d]
For they have gone astray perhaps,
    though they seek God and wish to find him.
⁷ For they search busily among his works,
    but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair.
⁸ But again, not even these are pardonable.
⁹ For if they so far succeeded in knowledge
    that they could speculate about the world,
    how did they not more quickly find its Lord?

¹⁰ But wretched are they, and in dead things are their hopes,
    who termed gods things made by human hands:
Gold and silver, the product of art, and images of beasts,
    or useless stone, the work of an ancient hand.^(E)

¹¹ A carpenter may cut down a suitable tree^(F)
    and skillfully scrape off all its bark,
And deftly plying his art
    produce something fit for daily use,^(G)
12 And use the scraps from his handiwork
    in preparing his food, and have his fill;
¹³ Then the good-for-nothing refuse from these remnants,
    crooked wood grown full of knots,
    he takes and carves to occupy his spare time.^(H)
This wood he models with mindless skill,
    and patterns it on the image of a human being
¹⁴     or makes it resemble some worthless beast.
When he has daubed it with red and crimsoned its surface with red stain,
    and daubed over every blemish in it,^(I)
15 He makes a fitting shrine for it
    and puts it on the wall, fastening it with a nail.^(J)
16 Thus he provides for it lest it fall down,
    knowing that it cannot help itself;
    for, truly, it is an image and needs help.^(K)
17 But when he prays about his goods or marriage or children,^(L)
    he is not ashamed to address the thing without a soul.
For vigor he invokes the powerless;
¹⁸     for life he entreats the dead;
For aid he beseeches the wholly incompetent;
    for travel, something that cannot even walk;
¹⁹ For profit in business and success with his hands
    he asks power of a thing with hands utterly powerless.

¹ Again, one preparing for a voyage and about to traverse the wild waves
    cries out to wood more unsound than the boat that bears him.^(M)
2 For the urge for profits devised this latter,
    and Wisdom the artisan produced it.

¹² For the source of wantonness is the devising of idols;
    and their invention, a corruption of life.^(S)
13 For in the beginning they were not,
    nor can they ever continue;^(T)
14     for from human emptiness they came into the world,
    and therefore a sudden end is devised for them.

^1 [l]But you, our God, are good and true,
    slow to anger, and governing all with mercy.^(AE)
2 For even if we sin, we are yours, and know your might;
    but we will not sin, knowing that we belong to you.^(AF)
3 For to know you well is complete righteousness,
    and to know your might is the root of immortality.^(AG)
4 For the evil creation of human fancy did not deceive us,
    nor the fruitless labor of painters,^(AH)
A form smeared with varied colors,
⁵     the sight of which arouses yearning in a fool,
    till he longs for the inanimate form of a dead image.
⁶ Lovers of evil things, and worthy of such hopes
    are they who make them and long for them and worship them.^(AI)

⁷ For the potter, laboriously working the soft earth,
    molds for our service each single article:
He fashions out of the same clay
    both the vessels that serve for clean purposes
    and their opposites, all alike;
As to what shall be the use of each vessel of either class
    the worker in clay is the judge.^(AJ)
8 [m]With misspent toil he molds a meaningless god from the selfsame clay,
    though he himself shortly before was made from the earth,
And is soon to go whence he was taken,
    when the life that was lent him is demanded back.^(AK)
9 But his concern is not that he is to die
    nor that his span of life is brief;
Rather, he vies with goldsmiths and silversmiths
    and emulates molders of bronze,
    and takes pride in fashioning counterfeits.^(AL)
10 Ashes his heart is!^[n] more worthless than earth is his hope,^(AM)
    more ignoble than clay his life;
¹¹ Because he knew not the one who fashioned him,
    and breathed into him a quickening soul,
    and infused a vital spirit.^(AN)
12 Instead, he esteemed our life a mere game,
    and our span of life a holiday for gain;
“For one must,” says he, “make a profit in every way, be it even from evil.”^(AO)
13 For more than anyone else he knows that he is sinning,
    when out of earthen stuff he creates fragile vessels and idols alike.

^18 [o]Besides, they worship the most loathsome beasts—^(AS)
    as regards stupidity, these are worse than the rest,^[p]
19 For beasts are neither good-looking nor desirable;
    they have escaped both the approval of God and his blessing.^(AT)

¹ Therefore they^[q] were fittingly punished by similar creatures,
    and were tormented by a swarm of insects.^(AU)
2 Instead of this punishment, you benefited your people
    with a novel dish, the delight they craved,
    by providing quail for their food,^(AV)
3 So that those others, when they desired food,
    should lose their appetite even for necessities,
    since the creatures sent to plague them were so loathsome,
While these, after a brief period of privation,
    partook of a novel dish.^(AW)
4 For inexorable want had to come upon those oppressors;
    but these needed only to be shown how their enemies were being tormented.^(AX)

¹⁶ For the wicked who refused to know you
    were punished by the might of your arm,
Were pursued by unusual rains and hailstorms and unremitting downpours,
    and were consumed by fire.^(BF)
17 For against all expectation, in water which quenches everything,
    the fire grew more active;
For the universe fights on behalf of the righteous.^(BG)
18 Then the flame was tempered^(BH)
    so that the beasts that were sent upon the wicked might not be burnt up,
    but that these might see and know that they were struck by the judgment of God;
¹⁹ And again, even in the water, fire blazed beyond its strength
    so as to consume the produce of the wicked land.
²⁰ Instead of this, you nourished your people with food of angels^[t]
    and furnished them bread from heaven, ready to hand, untoiled-for,
    endowed with all delights and conforming to every taste.^(BI)
21 For this substance of yours revealed your sweetness toward your children,
    and serving the desire of the one who received it,
    was changed to whatever flavor each one wished.^(BJ)
22 Yet snow and ice^[u] withstood fire and were not melted,
    so that they might know that their enemies’ fruits
Were consumed by a fire that blazed in the hail
    and flashed lightning in the rain.^(BK)

¹ For great are your judgments, and hard to describe;
    therefore the unruly souls went astray.^(BR)
2 For when the lawless thought to enslave the holy nation,
    they themselves lay shackled with darkness, fettered by the long night,
    confined beneath their own roofs as exiles from the eternal providence.^(BS)
3 For they, who supposed their secret sins were hid^(BT)
    under the dark veil of oblivion,
Were scattered in fearful trembling,
    terrified by apparitions.
⁴ For not even their inner chambers kept them unafraid,
    for crashing sounds on all sides terrified them,
    and mute phantoms with somber looks appeared.
⁵ No fire had force enough to give light,
    nor did the flaming brilliance of the stars
    succeed in lighting up that gloomy night.^(BU)
6 But only intermittent, fearful fires
    flashed through upon them;
And in their terror they thought beholding these was worse
    than the times when that sight was no longer to be seen.^(BV)
7 And mockeries of their magic art^[w] failed,
    and there was a humiliating refutation of their vaunted shrewdness.^(BW)
8 For they who undertook to banish fears and terrors from the sick soul
    themselves sickened with ridiculous fear.
⁹ For even though no monstrous thing frightened them,
    they shook at the passing of insects and the hissing of reptiles,^(BX)
10 And perished trembling,
    reluctant to face even the air that they could nowhere escape.
¹¹ For wickedness, of its nature cowardly, testifies in its own condemnation,
    and because of a distressed conscience, always magnifies misfortunes.^(BY)
12 For fear is nought but the surrender of the helps that come from reason;
¹³     and the more one’s expectation is of itself uncertain,
    the more one makes of not knowing the cause that brings on torment.
¹⁴ So they, during that night, powerless though it was,
    since it had come upon them from the recesses of a powerless^[x] Hades,
    while all sleeping the same sleep,
¹⁵ Were partly smitten by fearsome apparitions
    and partly stricken by their souls’ surrender;
    for fear overwhelmed them, sudden and unexpected.^(BZ)
16 Thus, then, whoever was there fell
    into that prison without bars and was kept confined.^(CA)
17 For whether one was a farmer, or a shepherd,
    or a worker at tasks in the wasteland,
Taken unawares, each served out the inescapable sentence;
¹⁸     for all were bound by the one bond of darkness.^(CB)
And were it only the whistling wind,
    or the melodious song of birds in the spreading branches,
Or the steady sound of rushing water,
¹⁹     or the rude crash of overthrown rocks,
Or the unseen gallop of bounding animals,
    or the roaring cry of the fiercest beasts,
Or an echo resounding from the hollow of the hills—
    these sounds, inspiring terror, paralyzed them.
²⁰ For the whole world shone with brilliant light^(CC)
    and continued its works without interruption;
²¹ But over them alone was spread oppressive night,
    an image of the darkness^[y] that was about to come upon them.
    Yet they were more a burden to themselves than was the darkness.

¹ But your holy ones had very great light;
And those others, who heard their voices but did not see their forms,
    counted them blest for not having suffered;
² And because they who formerly had been wronged did not harm them, they thanked them,
    and because of the difference between them,^[z] pleaded with them.
³ Instead of this, you furnished the flaming pillar,
    a guide on the unknown way,
    and the mild sun for an honorable migration.^(CD)
4 [aa]For they deserved to be deprived of light and imprisoned by darkness,
    they had kept your children confined,
    through whom the imperishable light of the law was to be given to the world.^(CE)

⁵ When they determined to put to death the infants of the holy ones,
    and when a single boy^[ab] had been cast forth and then saved,
As a reproof you carried off a multitude of their children
    and made them perish all at once in the mighty water.^(CF)
6 That night was known beforehand to our ancestors,
    so that, with sure knowledge of the oaths in which they put their faith, they might have courage.^(CG)
7 The expectation of your people
    was the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of their foes.^(CH)
8 For by the same means with which you punished our adversaries,
    you glorified us whom you had summoned.^(CI)
9 For in secret the holy children of the good were offering sacrifice
    and carried out with one mind the divine institution,^[ac]
So that your holy ones should share alike the same blessings and dangers,
    once they had sung the ancestral hymns of praise.^(CJ)
10 But the discordant cry of their enemies echoed back,
    and the piteous wail of mourning for children was borne to them.^(CK)
11 And the slave was smitten with the same retribution as the master;
    even the commoner suffered the same as the king.^(CL)
12 And all alike by one common form of death
    had countless dead;
For the living were not even sufficient for the burial,
    since at a single instant their most valued offspring had been destroyed.^(CM)
13 For though they disbelieved at every turn on account of sorceries,
    at the destruction of the firstborn they acknowledged that this people^[ad] was God’s son.^{(CN)
14 [ae]}For when peaceful stillness encompassed everything
    and the night in its swift course was half spent,
¹⁵ Your all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throne
    leapt into the doomed land,^(CO)
16     a fierce warrior bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree,
And alighted, and filled every place with death,
    and touched heaven, while standing upon the earth.^(CP)
17 Then, at once, visions in horrible dreams perturbed them^(CQ)
    and unexpected fears assailed them;
¹⁸ And cast half-dead, one here, another there,
    they revealed why they were dying.
¹⁹ For the dreams that disturbed them had proclaimed this beforehand,
    lest they perish unaware of why they endured such evil.

¹ But merciless wrath assailed the wicked until the end,
    for God knew beforehand what they were yet to do:^(CW)
2 That though they themselves had agreed to the departure
    and had anxiously sent them on their way,
    they would regret it and pursue them.^(CX)
3 For while they were still engaged in funeral rites
    and mourning at the burials of the dead,
They adopted another senseless plan:
    those whom they had driven out with entreaties
    they now pursued as fugitives.^(CY)
4 For a compulsion appropriate to this ending drew them on,
    and made them forget what had befallen them,
That they might complete the torments of their punishment,
⁵     and your people might experience a glorious^[ai] journey
    while those others met an extraordinary death.