Odes de Salomão — Ode 16

1As the work of the husbandman is the ploughshare: and the work of the steersman is the guidance of the ship:

2so also my work is the Psalm of the Lord: my craft and my occupation are in His praises:

3because His love hath nourished my heart, and even to my lips His fruits He poured out.

4For my love is the Lord, and therefore I will sing unto Him:

5for I am made strong in His praise, and I have faith in Him.

6I will open my mouth and His spirit will utter in me

7the glory of the Lord and His beauty; the work of His hands and the operation of His fingers:

8the multitude of His mercies and the strength of His word.

9For the word of the Lord searches out all things, both the invisible and that which reveals His thought;

10for the eye sees His works, and the ear hears His thought.

11He spread out the earth and He settled the waters in the sea:

12He measured the heavens and fixed the stars: and He established the creation and set it up:

13and He rested from His works:

14and created things run in their courses, and do their works:

15and they know not how to stand and be idle; and His [heavenly] hosts are subject to His word.

16The treasure-chamber of the light is the sun, and the treasury of the darkness is the night:

17and He made the sun for the day that it may be bright, but night brings darkness over the face of the land;

18and their alternations one to the other speak the beauty of God:

19and there is nothing that is without the Lord; for He was before any thing came into being:

20and the worlds were made by His word, and by the thought of His heart. Glory and honour to His name. Hallelujah.