Wisdom 16:19–29

¹⁹At another time even in the midst of water it burns more intensely than fire, that it may destroy the produce of an unrighteous land.↗

²⁰Instead of these things, you gave your people angels’ food to eat, and you provided ready-to-eat bread for them from heaven without toil, having the virtue of every pleasant flavor, and agreeable to every taste.↗

²¹For your nature showed your sweetness toward your children, while that bread, serving the desire of the eater, changed itself according to every man’s choice.↗

²²But snow and ice endured fire, and didn’t melt, that people might know that fire was destroying the fruits of the enemies, burning in the hail and flashing in the rains;↗

²³and that this fire, again, in order that righteous people may be nourished, has even forgotten its own power.↗

²⁴For the creation, ministering to you, its maker, strains its force against the unrighteous for punishment and in kindness, slackens it on behalf of those who trust in you.↗

²⁵Therefore at that time also, converting itself into all forms, it ministered to your all-nourishing bounty, according to the desire of those who had need,↗

²⁶that your children, whom you loved, O Lord, might learn that it is not the growth of crops that nourishes a man, but that your word preserves those who trust you.↗

²⁷For that which was not destroyed by fire, melted away when it was simply warmed by a faint sunbeam,↗

²⁸that it might be known that we must rise before the sun to give you thanks, and must pray to you at the dawning of the light;↗

²⁹for the hope of the unthankful will melt as the winter’s hoar frost, and will flow away as water that has no use.↗