17. For you show your might when the perfection of your power is disbelieved;and in those who know you, you rebuke insolence.
18. But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency,and with much lenience you govern us;for power, whenever you will, attends you.
19. You taught your people, by these deeds,that those who are righteous must be kind;And you gave your children reason to hopethat you would allow them to repent for their sins.
20. For these were enemies of your servants, doomed to death;yet, while you punished them with such solicitude and indulgence,granting time and opportunity to abandon wickedness,
21. With what exactitude you judged your children,to whose ancestors you gave the sworn covenants of goodly promises!
22. Therefore to give us a lesson you punish our enemies with measured deliberationso that we may think earnestly of your goodness when we judge,and, when being judged, we may look for mercy.
23. Hence those unrighteous who lived a life of folly,you tormented through their own abominations.