12 ³ Those who dwelt of old in your holy land
12 ⁴ thouhate for their detestable practices,
their works of sorcery and unholy rites,
12 ⁵ their merciless slaughter of children,
and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood.
These initiates from the midst of a heathen cult,
12 ⁶ these parents who murder helpless lives,
you willed to destroy by the hands of our fathers,
12 ⁷ that the land most precious of all to you
might receive a worthy colony of the servants of God.
12 ⁸ But even these you spared, since they were but men,
and sent wasps as forerunners of your army,
to destroy them little by little,
12 ⁹ though you were not unable to give the ungodly into the hands of the righteous in battle,
or to destroy them at one blow by dread wild beasts or your stern word.
12 ¹⁰ But judging them little by little you gave them a chance to repent,
though you were not unaware that their origin was evil and their wickedness inborn,
and that their way of thinking would never change.
12 ¹¹ For they were an accursed race from the beginning,
and it was not through fear of any one that you left them unpunished for their sins.