Original Douay Rheims Bible (1582 & 1610)

The Booke of Wisdom


1. BVT vpon the impious euen to the later end there came wrath without mercie. For he foreknew also the thinges that should come vnto them:
2. because when they had permitted that they should depart, and had sent them away with great diligence, they repenting pursued them.
3. For hauing as yet moorning betwen their hands, and lamenting at the graues of the dead, they tooke to themselues an other cogitation of follie: and whom by intreating they had cast forth, them they pursued as fugitiues:
4. for worthie necessitie brought them to this end: and they lost the remembrance of those thinges, which had chanced, that punishment might fulfil the thinges that wanted to the torments:
5. and that thy people certes might passe through meruelously, but they might finde a new death.
6. For euerie creature according to his kind was fashioned agayne from the begyning, seruing thy precepts, that thy children might be kept without hurt.
7. For a clowde ouer shadowed their campe, and out of the water which was before, there appeared drie land, and in the redsea a way without impediment, and of the great depth a springing filde:
8. though the which al the nation passed, which was protected with thy hand, seing thy meruelous thinges and wonders.
9. For euen as horses they fed on meate, and as lambes they reioyced, magnifying thee o Lord, which didst deliuer them.
10. For they were mindful of those thinges, which had bene done in their seiourning, how for the nation of beasts the earth brought forth flies, and for fishes the riuer yelded a multitude of frogges.
11. And last of al they saw a new creature of birdes, when allured by concupiscence they desired meates of deliciousnes.
12. For in comfort of their desire, there came vp to them the quaile from the sea: and vexations came vpon the sinners, not without those arguments, which were made before by the force of lightninges: for they suffered iustly occording to their wickednes.
13. For they instituted a more detestable inhospitalitie: some certes receiued not the vnknowen strangers, and other some brought the good strangers into seruitude.
14. And not onlie these thinges, but in deede there was an other respect also of them: for they against their wil receiued the strangers.
15. But they that receiued them with gladnes, did afflict them with most cruel sorowes, that vsed the same rightes:
16. but they were striken with blindnes: as they in the dores of the iust, when they were couered with sodaine darkenes, euerie man sought the passage of his doore.
17. For whiles the elements are turned in themselues, as in an instrument the sound of the qualitie is changed, and al keepe their sound: wherfore it may be certainly iudged by the very sight.
18. For the thinges of the fild were turned into thinges of the water: and what soeuer were swimming thinges passed into the land.
19. The fyre had force in water aboue his powre, and the water forgot her quenching nature.
20. On the contrarie the flames vexed not the flesh of corruptible beasts walking therwith, neither did they melt that good meate, which was easely dissolued euen as yce. For in al thinges thou didst magnifie thy people o Lord, and didst honour them, and didst not despise them, at al time, and in euerie place assisting them.