Wisdom 16:20-22
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
20 Instead of this, you nourished your people with food of angels[a]
and furnished them bread from heaven, ready to hand, untoiled-for,
endowed with all delights and conforming to every taste.(A)
21 For this substance of yours revealed your sweetness toward your children,
and serving the desire of the one who received it,
was changed to whatever flavor each one wished.(B)
22 Yet snow and ice[b] withstood fire and were not melted,
so that they might know that their enemies’ fruits
Were consumed by a fire that blazed in the hail
and flashed lightning in the rain.(C)
Footnotes
- 16:20 Food of angels: the famous phrase (cf. the hymn “Panis Angelicus”) is taken from Ps 78:24 as rendered by the Septuagint. The “bread from heaven” (cf. Ex 16:4; Ps 105:40) with its marvelous “sweetness” becomes a type of the “bread come down from heaven” in Jn 6:32–51, and plays a large role in later Christian devotion.
- 16:22 Snow and ice: the manna; cf. v. 27; 19:21.
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