1. Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
1. incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2. I will open my mouth in a parable;
2. I will utter insightful sayings of old,
3. which we have heard and known,
3. what our fathers have told us.
4. We will not hide them from their children,
4. but will tell the coming generation
4. the praises of the Lord,
4. and His strength, and the wonderful works that He has done.
5. For He established a rule in Jacob,
5. and appointed a law in Israel,
5. which He commanded our fathers
5. that they should make them known to their children,
6. that the generation to come might know them,
6. even the children who are not yet born,
6. who will arise and declare them to their children:
7. that they might set their hope in God
7. and not forget the works of God,
7. but keep His commandments,
8. and they might not be as their fathers,
8. a stubborn and rebellious generation,
8. a generation that did not set their heart steadfast,
8. and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9. The people of Ephraim, being armed with bows,
9. turned back in the day of battle.
10. They did not keep the covenant of God
10. and refused to walk in His law;
11. and they forgot His works
11. and the wonders that He had shown them.
12. In the sight of their ancestors He did marvelous wonders
12. in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13. He divided the sea and caused them to pass through,
13. and He made the waters to stand as a heap.
14. In the daytime He led them with a cloud,
14. and all the night with a light of fire.
15. He split rocks in the wilderness
15. and gave them abundance to drink as out of the great depths.
16. He brought streams out of the rock
16. and caused waters to run down like rivers.
17. They sinned yet more against Him
17. by provoking the Most High in the wilderness.
18. They tested God in their heart
18. by demanding the food that they craved.
19. They spoke against God by saying,
19. “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
20. Behold, He struck the rock, so that the waters gushed out
20. and the streams overflowed.
20. Can He give bread
20. or provide meat for His people?”
21. Therefore the Lord heard this and was full of wrath;
21. a fire was kindled against Jacob,
21. and anger also came up against Israel,
22. because they did not believe in God
22. nor trust in His deliverance.
23. Yet He had commanded the skies above
23. and opened the doors of heaven,
24. and He rained down manna upon them to eat
24. and gave them the grain of heaven.
25. Man ate the food of mighty angels;
25. He sent them bread in abundance.
26. He caused an east wind to blow in the heavens,
26. and by His power He brought out a south wind.
27. He rained meat on them as dust,
27. and winged birds as the sand of the sea;
28. and He let them fall in the midst of their camp
28. all around their habitations.
29. So they ate and were satisfied,
29. for He gave them their own desire;
30. while they were not yet filled up,
30. and while the meat was still in their mouths,
31. the wrath of God came upon them,
31. and He killed the strongest of them
31. and struck down the young men of Israel.
32. For all this they sinned still,
32. and did not believe despite His wondrous works.
33. Therefore He made their days vanish like a breath,
33. and their years in trouble.
34. When He killed them, then they sought Him;
34. they turned back and longed for God.
35. They remembered that God was their rock,
35. and the Most High God their redeemer.
36. Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth,
36. and they lied to Him with their tongues;
37. for their heart was not devoted to Him,
37. neither were they committed to His covenant.
38. But He being full of compassion
38. forgave their iniquity
38. and did not destroy them.
38. He constantly restrained His anger,
38. and did not stir up all His wrath;
39. for He remembered that they were but flesh,
39. like a wind that passes away and does not return.
40. How often they provoked Him in the wilderness
40. and grieved Him in the desert!
41. Yes, they tested God over and over,
41. and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42. They did not remember His power,
42. nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy,
43. how He had performed His signs in Egypt
43. and His wonders in the fields of Zoan:
44. and He turned their rivers into blood,
44. so that they could not drink from their streams.
45. He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them,
45. and frogs, which destroyed them.
46. He gave also their crops to the grasshopper
46. and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
47. He destroyed their vines with hail
47. and their sycamore trees with frost.
48. He gave up their cattle also to the hail
48. and their flocks to thunderbolts.
49. He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger,
49. wrath, indignation, and trouble,
49. by sending angels bringing disaster.
50. He made a path for His anger;
50. He did not spare them from death,
50. but gave their lives over to the plague,
51. And struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
51. the first fruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52. Then He led out His own people like sheep
52. and guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
53. He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid,
53. but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54. He brought them to the border of His holy land,
54. to the mountain that His right hand had acquired.
55. He cast out the nations also before them,
55. and divided for them their tribal allotments,
55. and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.
56. Yet they tested and provoked the Most High God,
56. and did not keep His commands,
57. but turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers;
57. they turned aside like a deceitful bow.
58. For they provoked Him to anger with their high places
58. and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images.
59. When God heard this, He was full of wrath
59. and greatly rejected Israel
60. so that He left the tabernacle at Shiloh,
60. the tent where He lived among people,
61. and delivered His strength to captivity
61. and His glory into the enemy’s hand.
62. He gave His people over also to the sword;
62. He was enraged with His inheritance.
63. The fire consumed their young men,
63. and their maidens were not given to marriage in song.
64. Their priests fell by the sword,
64. and their widows made no lamentation.
65. Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep,
65. and like a mighty man who shouts because of wine.
66. He routed His enemies back,
66. and He made them a perpetual reproach.
67. Moreover, He rejected the tent of Joseph,
67. and He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
68. but chose the tribe of Judah,
68. Mount Zion which He loves.
69. He built His sanctuary like the high heavens,
69. like the earth that He has established perpetually.
70. He chose David His servant
70. and took him from the sheepfolds;
71. from following the nursing ewes He brought him
71. to shepherd Jacob His people,
71. and Israel His inheritance.
72. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart
72. and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.