Odes de Salomão — Ode 38

1I went up to the light of truth as if into a chariot:

2and the Truth took me and led me: and carried me across pits and gulleys; and from the rocks and the waves it preserved me:

3and it became to me a haven of Salvation: and set me on the arms of immortal life:

4and it went with me and made me rest, and suffered me not to wander, because it was the Truth;

5and I ran no risk, because I walked with Him;

6and I did not make an error in anything because I obeyed the Truth.

7For Error flees away from it, and meets it not: but the Truth proceeds in the right path, and

8whatever I did not know, it made clear to me, all the poisons of error, and the plagues of death which they think to be sweetness:

9and I saw the destroyer of destruction, when the bride who is corrupted is adorned; and the bridegroom who corrupts and is corrupted;

10and I asked the Truth, 'Who are these?'; and He said to me, This is the deceiver and the error:

11and they are alike in the beloved and in his bride: and they lead astray and corrupt the [whole] world:

12and they invite many to the banquet,

13and give them to drink of the wine of their intoxication, and remove their wisdom and knowledge, and [so] they make them without intelligence;

14and then they leave them; and then these go about like madmen corrupting: seeing that they are without heart, nor do they seek for it.

15And I was made wise so as not to fall into the hands of the deceiver; and I congratulated myself because the Truth went with me,

16and I was established and lived and was redeemed,

17and my foundations were laid on the hand of the Lord: because He established me.

18For He set the root and watered it and fixed it and blessed it; and its fruits are for ever.

19It struck deep and sprung up and spread out, and was full and enlarged;

20and the Lord alone was glorified in His planting and in His husbandry: by His care and by the blessing of His lips,

21by the beautiful planting of His right hand: and by the discovery of His planting, and by the thought of His mind. Hallelujah.