13. When they heard that the Hebrews were benefiting from their punishment, they perceived that it was the Lord’s doing.
14. They thirsted, but their thirst was so different from the thirst of those who do what is right! In the end, they stood in awe of the man they had mockingly rejected long ago because he had been set adrift and exposed.
15. Because their foolish and wicked thoughts had led them astray to worship unthinking reptiles and worthless animals, you sent hordes of mindless creatures upon them as a punishment.
16. In this way they learned that people are punished by the very same things by which they sin.
17. Your all-powerful hand, which had brought the world into being out of formless matter, would have been more than able to send a host of bears and fierce lions against them.
18. Or they could have been met by newly created beasts that no one had ever seen before, full of rage, breathing fire, belching smoke, and shooting deadly sparks from their eyes.
19. The damage that these beasts would have been able to do would have been more than enough to wipe out your enemies. Just the sight of them would have been enough to make them die from fear!
20. Or without any of these, your enemies could have been cut down by a single breath—pursued by your justice and crushed by a powerful breath.But you have set all things in right order by proportion: by measure, by number, and by weight.
21. You are indeed able at any time to carry out mighty deeds. Who could possibly withstand the strength of your arm?
22. Before you, the whole world is nothing but dust on the scale or but a drop of dew that falls to earth in the night.
23. Yet precisely because you can do all things, you show mercy to everyone. You overlook their sins, giving them a chance to change their hearts and minds.
24. You love everything that exists. You despise nothing that you have made. If you hated it, you wouldn’t have created it.
25. Nothing could survive unless you had willed it. Nothing could remain unless you continued to call it into being.
26. You spare all things because all things are yours, ruler and lover of life.