9. For in secret the holy children of the good were offering sacrificeand carried out with one mind the divine institution,So that your holy ones should share alike the same blessings and dangers,once they had sung the ancestral hymns of praise.
10. But the discordant cry of their enemies echoed back,and the piteous wail of mourning for children was borne to them.
11. And the slave was smitten with the same retribution as the master;even the commoner suffered the same as the king.
12. And all alike by one common form of deathhad countless dead;For the living were not even sufficient for the burial,since at a single instant their most valued offspring had been destroyed.
13. For though they disbelieved at every turn on account of sorceries,at the destruction of the firstborn they acknowledged that this people was God’s son.
14. For when peaceful stillness encompassed everythingand the night in its swift course was half spent,
15. Your all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throneleapt into the doomed land,
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.
17. Then, at once, visions in horrible dreams perturbed themand 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.
20. The trial of death touched even the righteous,and in the desert a plague struck the multitude;Yet not for long did the anger last.
21. For the blameless man hastened to be their champion,bearing the weapon of his special office,prayer and the propitiation of incense;He withstood the wrath and put a stop to the calamity,showing that he was your servant.
22. He overcame the bitternessnot by bodily strength, not by force of arms;But by word he overcame the smiter,recalling the sworn covenants with their ancestors.