1. Your judgments are great and difficult to explain. This is why those who haven’t been well-taught go astray.
2. When lawless people tried to oppress your holy nation, in actual fact they were the prisoners who were being held in a dark place, bound in chains through a long night. They were confined to their own homes as they vainly tried to flee from a plan that had been prepared for all eternity.
3. They thought that they could hide their sins by pulling a blanket of forgetfulness over themselves. But instead they were scattered in every direction, terrified by fear, and spooked by nightmarish visions.
4. They hid themselves in the deepest corners of their houses, but couldn’t escape from their fears. Even there they heard all around them sounds that terrified them. Mournful ghosts with gloomy faces appeared to them.
5. No fire gave them any light, nor did the stars’ light shine brightly enough to illumine that horrible night.
6. Only once did anything shine through: it was a frightening fire that seemed to have a life of its own. But then, when they lost sight of that light, they were even more afraid than they had been before they had seen it! They began to realize that what they had seen was even worse than what they had thought.
7. They realized that their mocking attempts at magic were too weak and that they had no real power. It became clear to them that they had given themselves far too much credit for understanding what was happening.
8. Those who had thought they could dispel fears and free sick beings from terror became sick themselves with a laughable case of nerves.
9. Even when there was nothing around to frighten them, they were scared by the simple sounds of animals’ movements and hissing serpents.
10. Trembling, they were dying with fright, shutting their eyes even against the empty air, as if they could thus avoid what was scaring them.
11. Wickedness is cowardly, condemned by its own witness. Distressed by conscience, the wicked person thinks everything is worse than it is.