1
For your judgments are great, and hard to interpret;
2
For when lawless men had supposed that they held a holy nation in their power,
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For while they thought that they were unseen in their secret sins,
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For neither did the dark recesses that held them guard them from fears,
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And no power of fire prevailed to give light,
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but only the glimmering of a self-kindled fire appeared to them, full of fear.
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The mockeries of their magic arts were powerless, now,
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For those who promised to drive away terrors and disorders from a sick soul,
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For even if no troubling thing frighted them,
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they perished trembling in fear,
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For wickedness, condemned by a witness within, is a coward thing,
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For fear is nothing else but a surrender of the help which reason offers;
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and from within, the expectation of being less
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But they, all through the night which was powerless indeed,
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now were haunted by monstrous apparitions,
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So then whoever it might be, sinking down in his place,
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for whether he was a farmer, or a shepherd,
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Whether there was a whistling wind,
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or a harsh crashing of rocks hurled down,
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For the whole world was illuminated with clear light,
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while over them alone was spread a heavy night,