3 For truly, the ancient inhabitants of your holy land,
4 whom you hated for deeds most odious—works of sorcery and impious sacrifices;
5 These merciless murderers of children,devourers of human flesh,and initiates engaged in a blood ritual,
6 and parents who took with their own hands defenseless lives,You willed to destroy by the hands of our ancestors,
7 that the land that is dearest of all to youmight receive a worthy colony of God’s servants.
8 But even these you spared, since they were but mortalsand sent wasps as forerunners of your armythat they might exterminate them by degrees.
9 Not that you were without power to have the wicked vanquished in battle by the righteous,or wiped out at once by terrible beasts or by one decisive word;