A contemplation by Asaph.

• ¹Hear 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 Yahweh,
• his strength, and his wondrous works that he has done.

• ⁵For he established a testimony 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 the works of God,
• 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.

• 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 works 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 flesh for his people?”

• ²¹Therefore Yahweh 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 rained also flesh on them as the dust;
• winged birds as the sand of the seas.

• ²⁸He let them fall in the midst 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 fattest,
• 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 gave also their increase to the caterpillar,
• and their labor to the locust.

• ⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hail,
• their sycamore fig trees with frost.

• ⁴⁸He gave over their livestock also 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 forth 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 turned aside 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 forsook 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.