³⁹ Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,

³ Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” ⁴ So they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain and go back to Egypt.”

⁵ We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic,^(A)

¹⁶ “But they, our ancestors, acted presumptuously and stiffened their necks and did not obey your commandments;^{(A) 17} they refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them.^(B)

³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”^(A)

⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.^{(A) 52} Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.^(B)

⁶ On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands.^{(A) 7} And I said to them, “Cast away the detestable things on which your eyes feast, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”^{(B) 8} But they rebelled against me and would not listen to me; not one of them cast away the detestable things on which their eyes feasted, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.

Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.^{(C) 9} But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.^{(D) 10} So I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness.^{(E) 11} I gave them my statutes and showed them my ordinances, by whose observance everyone shall live.^{(F) 12} Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, so that they might know that I the Lord sanctify them.^{(G) 13} But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness; they did not observe my statutes but rejected my ordinances, by whose observance everyone shall live, and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned.

Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make an end of them.^{(H) 14} But I acted for the sake of my name, so that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.

²⁷ So Solomon banished Abiathar from being priest to the Lord, thus fulfilling the word of the Lord that he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.^(A)

² Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah away, saying to him, “You shall not inherit anything in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.”