⁰A poem of Asaph.

¹Give ear, my people, to my instruction; turn your ear to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth in a proverb; I will pour out riddles from of old.

³What we have heard and known, and our fathers have recounted to us.

⁴We will not hide them from their sons, recounting to a later generation the praises of Yahweh, and his might, and his wonders that he has done.

⁵He raised up a testimony in Jacob, and set an instruction in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to make known to their children.

⁶So that a later generation may know, children yet to be born; they will rise and recount them to their children.

⁷So that they set their confidence in God, and do not forget the deeds of God, and keep his commandments.

⁸And not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not make its heart firm, whose breath was not faithful with God.

⁹The children of Ephraim, armed shooters of the bow, turned back on the day of battle.

¹⁰They did not keep the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his instruction.

¹¹And they forgot his deeds and his wonders that he had shown them.

¹²Before their fathers he did a wonder in the land of Egypt, the field of Zoan.

¹³He split open the sea and brought them through, and made the waters stand up like a heap.

¹⁴And he led them with the cloud by day, and all the night by the light of fire.

¹⁵He split open rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as from the great deeps.

¹⁶And he brought streams out of the crag and made waters flow down like rivers.

¹⁷And they kept on sinning against him still, rebelling against the Most High in the dry land.

¹⁸And they tested God in their heart, asking food for their being.

¹⁹And they spoke against God; they said, Is God able to arrange a table in the wilderness?

²⁰Look, he struck the rock and waters flowed, and torrents overflowed. Can he also give bread, or provide meat for his people?

²¹So Yahweh heard and became furious, and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and also anger went up against Israel.

²²For they did not believe in God, and did not trust in his deliverance.

²³And he commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of the skies.

²⁴And he rained manna on them to eat, and gave them the grain of the skies.

²⁵A man ate the bread of the mighty ones; he sent them provision to the full.

²⁶He set out an east wind in the skies, and drove the south wind by his strength.

²⁷And he rained food on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the seas.

²⁸And he let it fall in the midst of his camp, all around his dwellings.

²⁹And they ate and were satisfied fully, and what they desired he brought them.

³⁰They were not estranged from their desire, while their food was still in their mouths.

³¹And the anger of God rose against them, and he killed among their fat ones, and made the young men of Israel crouch.

³²In all this they sinned again, and did not trust in his wonders.

³³And he brought their days to an end in a vapor, and their years in sudden terror.

³⁴Whenever he killed them, they inquired of him; they turned back and looked early for God.

³⁵And they remembered that God was their rock, and God Most High their redeemer.

³⁶And they enticed him with their mouths, and with their tongues they lied to him.

³⁷But their heart was not steady with him, and they were not faithful to his covenant.

³⁸And he, compassionate, would cover guilt and would not ruin them, and many times he turned back his anger and did not rouse all his rage.

³⁹And he remembered that they were flesh, a wind that goes and does not return.

⁴⁰How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the wasteland!

⁴¹And they turned again and tested God, and pained the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not remember his hand, the day he ransomed them from the foe.

⁴³when he set his signs in Egypt and his wonders in the field of Zoan.

⁴⁴He turned their channels to blood, and their streams they could not drink.

⁴⁵He sent a swarm among them, and it devoured them, and frogs, which ruined them.

⁴⁶And he gave their produce to the ravager, and the fruit of their toil to the locust.

⁴⁷He killed their vines with hail, and their sycamore figs with plant lice.

⁴⁸And he handed their cattle over to the hail, and their livestock to the lightning-bolts.

⁴⁹He sent among them the burning of his anger, fury and indignation and distress, a sending of messengers of evil.

⁵⁰He leveled a path for his anger; he did not hold back their being from death, and handed their life over to the pestilence.

⁵¹And he struck every firstborn in Egypt, the first of vigor in the tents of Ham.

⁵²And he made his people set out like a flock, and led them like a herd in the wilderness.

⁵³And he guided them in security, and they were not in dread, while the sea covered their enemies.

⁵⁴And he brought them to the territory of his holy place, the mountain that his right hand acquired.

⁵⁵And he drove nations out from before them, and made it fall to them as an inheritance by the measuring cord, and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.

⁵⁶And they tested and rebelled against God Most High, and did not keep his testimonies.

⁵⁷And they went back and betrayed, like their fathers; they were turned like a deceitful bow.

⁵⁸And they provoked him to anger with their high places, and with their idols they made him jealous.

⁵⁹God heard and was furious; he rejected Israel exceedingly.

⁶⁰And he abandoned the dwelling place of Shiloh, the tent where he made his home among humankind.

⁶¹And he gave his strength to captivity, and his splendor into the hand of the enemy.

⁶²And he shut up his people to the sword, and was furious at his inheritance.

⁶³Fire consumed his young men, and his virgins were not praised.

⁶⁴His priests fell by the sword, and his widows could not weep.

⁶⁵Then the Lord awoke like a sleeper, like a warrior crying out from wine.

⁶⁶And he struck his enemies backward; he gave them a reproach forever.

⁶⁷And he rejected the tent of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁸But he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved.

⁶⁹And he built his sanctuary like the heights, like the land: he founded it forever.

⁷⁰And he chose David his slave, and took him from the folds of the flock.

⁷¹From following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.

⁷²And he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and led them by the understanding of his palms.