Wisdom Led the Israelites through the Desert

(Ex 15–17)

11 Wisdoma prospered their works by the hand of a holy prophet.

2 They journeyed through an uninhabited wilderness,

and pitched their tents in untrodden places.

3 They withstood their enemies and fought off their foes.

4 When they were thirsty, they called upon you,

and water was given them out of flinty rock,

and from hard stone a remedy for their thirst.

5 For through the very things by which their enemies were punished,

they themselves received benefit in their need.

6 Instead of the fountain of an ever-flowing river,

stirred up and defiled with blood

7 in rebuke for the decree to kill the infants,

you gave them abundant water unexpectedly,

8 showing by their thirst at that time

how you punished their enemies.

9 For when they were tried, though they were being disciplined in mercy,

they learned how the ungodly were tormented when judged in wrath.

10 For you tested them as a parentb does in warning,

but you examined the ungodlyc as a stern king does in condemnation.

11 Whether absent or present, they were equally distressed,

12 for a twofold grief possessed them,

and a groaning at the memory of what had occurred.

13 For when they heard that through their own punishments

the righteousd had received benefit, they perceived it was the Lord’s doing.

14 For though they had mockingly rejected him who long before had been cast out and exposed,

at the end of the events they marveled at him,

when they felt thirst in a different way from the righteous.