{"collection":"Judaism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/jud/sig/sig37.htm","path":"jud/sig/sig37.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/jud/sig/sig37.htm","text":"Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol, tr. by Israel Zangwill, [1923]\nPropound a mystery, O my tongue, and give praise to God,\n For He hath delivered me and exalted my horn.\n Awake, my heart, and turn to the Almighty,\n And in awe of His anger let my hand be lifted to Him.\nSet the Most High before thee, and know that every thought\n And every hidden imagining are to Him not hidden.\n Dread the day of His wrath, and the dreadful position\n Wherein is help or refuge for no creature.\nOn the day He shall judge the peoples and destroy beings\n And wither all His adversaries as with the fiery blast of his nostrils\n And decree the fate of all potentates, officers and rulers,\n Nor pay regard to mighty princes.\n And destroy tyrants and cut off the scornful,\n The proud and presumptuous who rely on the\n preciousness of their palanquin;\nWho have forgotten their Creator and put their trust in their riches\n And prided themselves above high God,\n Who humbleth and uplifteth,\n And have rebelled against their Master,\n With their host and their multitude,\n And the silver they have acquired, and the fine gold and sapphires, p. 57\n And have built structures, and carved out windows,\n And erected palaces, and battlements and chambers,\n Nor remember the Almighty,\n But wax fat in the abundance of power,\n And speak arrogantly to Him\n And roar like young lions.\nBut He is great and fearful,\n And girded about with might;\n He calleth the generations\n And from Him are the hill-tops.\n Doth He not regard the lowly,\n And abase every one that is proud?\n He will raise up the broken pauper\n And lift him from the dunghill.\nWoe to them for this,\n When their Creator shall sit in judgment,\n To take vengeance on them, their grown and their little ones, p. 58\n And they shall fall into the net, weeping bitterly,\n And when quaffing the cup of foaming wine\n Shall drain only dregs,\n And shall be consumed in their iniquity,\n And their riches shall not profit them,\n And all they build shall be upset\n As though overthrown by strangers.\nAnd the God of the ages will abhor the man of blood\n And will break the haughty\n Like a potter\u2019s vessel,\n And will bring low their pride\n And silence their psaltery\n And make their voice sound\n Like a ghost from the dust,\n And demolish their battlements\n And their houses of pleasure,\n And make over their inheritance\n To strangers and aliens, p. 59\n And the gadfly shall sting them\n To determined destruction,\n And they shall be trodden of passers-by\n Like a ground or a street.\nTherefore turn ye from them and their counsels,\n Nor vie with them\n Lest your fate be as that of these arrogant.","title":"Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol: 34. The ...","type":"page"}