1
But for Your holy ones there was great light, and their enemies, hearing their voices but not seeing their form, counted them blessed because they had not suffered.
2
And because they did not harm them when they had previously been wronged, they gave thanks and begged forgiveness for having been enemies.
3
Instead of darkness, You gave Your People a burning pillar of fire as a guide for the unknown journey and as a harmless sun for their glorious wandering.
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For the others deserved to be deprived of light and imprisoned in darkness, because they had kept Your sons shut up, through whom the incorruptible light of the Torah was to be given to the world.
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And when they determined to kill the infants of the holy ones, and one child was cast out and preserved, You took away a multitude of their sons for correction and destroyed them together in mighty waters.
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That night was made known beforehand to our fathers, so that, knowing with certainty the Oaths in which they trusted, they might rejoice.
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Your People awaited both the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of their enemies.
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For by the same thing with which You punished our adversaries, You glorified us by calling us to Yourself.
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For the holy sons of good men offered sacrifice in secret and together established the divine law of agreement: that the holy ones would share alike both good things and dangers, and already they sang the praises of the fathers.
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But from the other side came the discordant cry of the enemies, and a lamenting voice was carried abroad for the sons who were mourned.
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Servant and master were punished with the same Judgment, and commoner and king suffered alike.
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All together had countless dead through one kind of death, and the living were not sufficient even to bury them, for in one moment their most honored offspring was destroyed.
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For though they had refused to believe anything because of their sorceries, at the destruction of the firstborn they acknowledged that the People were sons of Elohim.
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For while all things were held in quiet silence, and the night had reached the middle of its course,
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Your all-powerful Word leaped from the heavens, from the royal Throne, into the midst of the land appointed for destruction, like a fierce warrior carrying the sharp sword of Your unalterable command.
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And standing there, He filled all things with death, and while touching the heavens, He stood upon the earth.
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Then immediately visions of terrible dreams troubled them, and unexpected fears came upon them.
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And one thrown here and another there, half-dead, revealed the cause for which he was dying.
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For the dreams that disturbed them had shown this beforehand, so that they would not perish without knowing why they suffered evil.
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But the testing of death also touched the righteous, and a destruction of many came in the wilderness. Yet wrath did not remain long.
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For a blameless ish hastened to defend them. He brought the weapon of his service— prayer and the incense of atonement— and stood against wrath and brought the calamity to an end, showing himself to be Your servant.
22
He overcame the wrath not by strength of body, nor by the force of weapons, but by the Word he subdued the one punishing, bringing forward the Oaths and Covenants given to the fathers.
23
For when the dead had already fallen in heaps upon one another, he stood between them, restrained the wrath, and cut off its path toward the living.
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For upon his long garment was the whole world, and the glories of the fathers were engraved upon the four rows of stones, and Your Majesty was upon the crown of his head.
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Before these things the destroyer withdrew, and these things he feared. For the mere testing of wrath was sufficient.