1 - ?A maskil
My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth.
2 - I will open my mouth with a parable; I will utter hidden things, things from of old -
3 - things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us.
4 - We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.
5 - He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children,
6 - so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.
7 - Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.
8 - They would not be like their ancestors - a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.
9 - The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle;
10 - they did not keep God's covenant and refused to live by his law.
11 - They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them.
12 - He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
13 - He divided the sea and led them through; he made the water stand up like a wall.
14 - He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night.
15 - He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them water as abundant as the seas;
16 - he brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers.
17 - But they continued to sin against him, rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.
18 - They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved.
19 - They spoke against God; they said, "Can God really spread a table in the wilderness?
20 - True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out, streams flowed abundantly, but can he also give us bread? Can he supply meat for his people?"
21 - When the Lord heard them, he was furious; his fire broke out against Jacob, and his wrath rose against Israel,
22 - for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance.
23 - Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens;
24 - he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.
25 - Human beings ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.
26 - He let loose the east wind from the heavens and by his power made the south wind blow.
27 - He rained meat down on them like dust, birds like sand on the seashore.
28 - He made them come down inside their camp, all around their tents.
29 - They ate till they were gorged - he had given them what they craved.
30 - But before they turned from what they craved, even while the food was still in their mouths,
31 - God's anger rose against them; he put to death the sturdiest among them, cutting down the young men of Israel.
32 - In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.
33 - So he ended their days in futility and their years in terror.
34 - Whenever God slew them, they would seek him; they eagerly turned to him again.
35 - They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.
36 - But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues;
37 - their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant.
38 - Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.
39 - He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.
40 - How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the wasteland!
41 - Again and again they put God to the test; they vexed the Holy One of Israel.
42 - They did not remember his power - the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,
43 - the day he displayed his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the region of Zoan.
44 - He turned their river into blood; they could not drink from their streams.
45 - He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.
46 - He gave their crops to the grasshopper, their produce to the locust.
47 - He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamore-figs with sleet.
48 - He gave over their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.
49 - He unleashed against them his hot anger, his wrath, indignation and hostility - a band of destroying angels.
50 - He prepared a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death but gave them over to the plague.
51 - He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.
52 - But he brought his people out like a flock; he led them like sheep through the wilderness.
53 - He guided them safely, so they were unafraid; but the sea engulfed their enemies.
54 - And so he brought them to the border of his holy land, to the hill country his right hand had taken.
55 - He drove out nations before them and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance; he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.
56 - But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes.
57 - Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow.
58 - They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.
59 - When God heard them, he was furious; he rejected Israel completely.
60 - He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among humans.
61 - He sent the ark of his might into captivity, his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
62 - He gave his people over to the sword; he was furious with his inheritance.
63 - Fire consumed their young men, and their young women had no wedding songs;
64 - their priests were put to the sword, and their widows could not weep.
65 - Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine.
66 - He beat back his enemies; he put them to everlasting shame.
67 - Then he rejected the tents of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
68 - but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved.
69 - He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that he established forever.
70 - He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens;
71 - from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel his inheritance.
72 - And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.