Wisdom of Solomon 12:3–8
3 Those who lived long ago in your holy land
4 you hated for their detestable practices,
their works of sorcery and unholy rites,
5 their merciless slaughtera of children,
and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood.
These initiates from the midst of a heathen cult,b
6 these parents who murder helpless lives,
you willed to destroy by the hands of our ancestors,
7 so that the land most precious of all to you
might receive a worthy colony of the servantsc of God.
8 But even these you spared, since they were but mortals,
and sent waspsd as forerunners of your army
to destroy them little by little,