¹ 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.