14 For while gentle silence enveloped all things,

and night in its swift course was now half gone,

15 your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne,

into the midst of the land that was doomed,

a stern warrior

16 carrying the sharp sword of your authentic command,

and stood and filled all things with death,

and touched heaven while standing on the earth.

17 Then at once apparitions in dreadful dreams greatly troubled them,

and unexpected fears assailed them;

18 and one here and another there, hurled down half dead,

made known why they were dying;

19 for the dreams that disturbed them forewarned them of this,

so that they might not perish without knowing why they suffered.

Threat of Annihilation in the Desert

(Num 16:41–50)

20 The experience of death touched also the righteous,

and a plague came upon the multitude in the desert,

but the wrath did not long continue.

21 For a blameless man was quick to act as their champion;

he brought forward the shield of his ministry,

prayer and propitiation by incense;

he withstood the anger and put an end to the disaster,

showing that he was your servant.

22 He conquered the wrathh not by strength of body,

not by force of arms,

but by his word he subdued the avenger,

appealing to the oaths and covenants given to our ancestors.

23 For when the dead had already fallen on one another in heaps,

he intervened and held back the wrath,

and cut off its way to the living.

24 For on his long robe the whole world was depicted,

and the glories of the ancestors were engraved on the four rows of stones,

and your majesty was on the diadem upon his head.

25 To these the destroyer yielded, these hei feared;

for merely to test the wrath was enough.