| 1 | Understanding for Asaph. Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. |
| 2 | I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning. |
| 3 | How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us. |
| 4 | They have not been hidden from their children, in another generation. Declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders which he hath done. |
| 5 | And he set up a testimony in Jacob: and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children: |
| 6 | That another generation might know them. The children that should be born and should rise up, and declare them to their children. |
| 7 | That they may put their hope in God and may not forget the works of God: and may seek his commandments. |
| 8 | That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart aright: and whose spirit was not faithful to God. |
| 9 | The sons of Ephraim who bend and shoot with the bow: they have turned back in the day of battle. |
| 10 | They kept not the covenant of God: and in his law they would not walk. |
| 11 | And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them. |
| 12 | Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis. |
| 13 | He divided the sea and brought them through: and he made the waters to stand as in a vessel. |
| 14 | And he conducted them with a cloud by day: and all the night with a light of fire. |
| 15 | He struck the rock in the wilderness: and gave them to drink, as out of the great deep. |
| 16 | He brought forth water out of the rock: and made streams run down as rivers. |
| 17 | And they added yet more sin against him: they provoked the most High to wrath in the place without water. |
| 18 | And they tempted God in their hearts, by asking meat for their desires. |
| 19 | And they spoke ill of God: they said: Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? |
| 20 | Because he struck the rock, and the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he also give bread, or provide a table for his people? |
| 21 | Therefore the Lord heard, and was angry: and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and wrath came up against Israel. |
| 22 | Because they believed not in God: and trusted not in his salvation. |
| 23 | And he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of heaven. |
| 24 | And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the bread of heaven. |
| 25 | Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance. |
| 26 | He removed the south wind from heaven: and by his power brought in the southwest wind. |
| 27 | And he rained upon them flesh as dust: and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea. |
| 28 | And they fell in the midst of their camp, round about their pavilions. |
| 29 | So they did eat, and were filled exceedingly, and he gave them their desire: |
| 30 | They were not defrauded of that which they craved. As yet their meat was in their mouth: |
| 31 | And the wrath of God came upon them. And he slew the fat ones amongst them, and brought down the chosen men of Israel. |
| 32 | In all these things they sinned still: and they believed not for his wondrous works. |
| 33 | And their days were consumed in vanity, and their years in haste. |
| 34 | When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned, and came to him early in the morning. |
| 35 | And they remembered that God was their helper: and the most high God their redeemer. |
| 36 | And they loved him with their mouth: and with their tongue they lied unto him: |
| 37 | But their heart was not right with him: nor were they counted faithful in his covenant. |
| 38 | But he is merciful, and will forgive their sins: and will not destroy them. And many a time did he turn away his anger: and did not kindle all his wrath. |
| 39 | And he remembered that they are flesh: a wind that goeth and returneth not. |
| 40 | How often did they provoke him in the desert: and move him to wrath in the place without water? |
| 41 | And they turned back and tempted God: and grieved the holy one of Israel. |
| 42 | They remembered not his hand, in the day that he redeemed them from the hand of him that afflicted them: |
| 43 | How he wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Tanis. |
| 44 | And he turned their rivers into blood, and their showers that they might, not drink. |
| 45 | He sent amongst them divers sores of flies, which devoured them: and frogs which destroyed them. |
| 46 | And he gave up their fruits to the blast, and their labours to the locust. |
| 47 | And he destroyed their vineyards with hail, and their mulberry trees with hoarfrost. |
| 48 | And he gave up their cattle to the hail, and their stock to the fire. |
| 49 | And he sent upon them the wrath of his indignation: indignation and wrath and trouble, which he sent by evil angels. |
| 50 | He made a way for a path to his anger: he spared not their souls from death, and their cattle he shut up in death. |
| 51 | And he killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt: the firstfruits of all their labour in the tabernacles of Cham. |
| 52 | And he took away his own people as sheep: and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. |
| 53 | And he brought them out in hope, and they feared not: band the sea overwhelmed their enemies. |
| 54 | And he brought them into the mountain of his sanctuary: the mountain which his right hand had purchased. And he cast out the Gentiles before them: and by lot divided to them their land by a line of distribution. |
| 55 | And he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tabernacles. |
| 56 | Yet they tempted, and provoked the most high God: and they kept not his testimonies. |
| 57 | And they turned away, and kept not the covenant: even like their fathers they were turned aside as a crooked bow. |
| 58 | They provoked him to anger on their hills: and moved him to jealousy with their graven things. |
| 59 | God heard, and despised them, and he reduced Israel exceedingly as it were to nothing. |
| 60 | And he put away the tabernacle of Silo, his tabernacle where he dwelt among men. |
| 61 | And he delivered their strength into captivity: and their beauty into the hands of the enemy. |
| 62 | And he shut up his people under the sword: and he despised his inheritance. |
| 63 | Fire consumed their young men: and their maidens were not lamented. |
| 64 | Their priests fell by the sword: and their widows did not mourn. |
| 65 | And the Lord was awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that hath been surfeited with wine. |
| 66 | And he smote his enemies on the hinder parts: he put them to an everlasting reproach. |
| 67 | And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph: and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: |
| 68 | But he chose the tribe of Juda, mount Sion which he loved. |
| 69 | And he built his sanctuary as of unicorns, in the land which he founded for ever. |
| 70 | And he chose his servant David, and took him from the flocks of sheep: he brought him from following the ewes great with young, |
| 71 | To feed Jacob his servant, and Israel his inheritance. |
| 72 | And he fed them in the innocence of his heart: and conducted them by the skillfulness of his hands. |
