✧1A contemplation by Asaph. Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth. ✧2I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, ✧3which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. ✧4We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done. ✧5For he established a covenant in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; ✧6that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children, ✧7that they might set their hope in God, and not forget God’s deeds, but keep his commandments, ✧8and might not be as their fathers— a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
World English Bible (WEB). World English Bible (Protestant edition). Public domain.
✧9The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
✧10They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law.
✧11They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them.
✧12He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
✧13He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap.
✧14In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire.
✧15He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.
✧16He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
✧17Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
✧18They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire.
✧19Yes, they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
✧20Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide meat for his people?”
✧21Therefore the LORD heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel,
✧22because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation.
✧23Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven.
✧24He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky.
✧25Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food to the full.
✧26He caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By his power he guided the south wind.
✧27He also rained meat on them as the dust, winged birds as the sand of the seas.
✧28He let them fall in the middle of their camp, around their habitations.
✧29So they ate, and were well filled. He gave them their own desire.
✧30They didn’t turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths,
✧31when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of their strongest, and struck down the young men of Israel.
✧32For all this they still sinned, and didn’t believe in his wondrous works.
✧33Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
✧34When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly.
✧35They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer.
✧36But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue.
✧37For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant.
✧38But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn’t stir up all his wrath.
✧39He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again.
✧40How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!
✧41They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
✧42They didn’t remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;
✧43how he set his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan,
✧44he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink.
✧45He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.
✧46He also gave their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.
✧47He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.
✧48He also gave over their livestock to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
✧49He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil.
✧50He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,
✧51and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.
✧52But he led out his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
✧53He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
✧54He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken.
✧55He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
✧56Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies,
✧57but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were twisted like a deceitful bow.
✧58For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
✧59When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel,
✧60so that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men,
✧61and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary’s hand.
✧62He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance.
✧63Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song.
✧64Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn’t weep.
✧65Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.
✧66He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach.
✧67Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim,
✧68But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved.
✧69He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever.
✧70He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;
✧71from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.
✧72So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.