Book of Common Prayer

⁹ The people of Ephraim, being armed with bows,
    turned back in the day of battle.
¹⁰ They did not keep the covenant of God
    and refused to walk in His law;
¹¹ and they forgot His works
    and the wonders that He had shown them.
¹² In the sight of their ancestors He did marvelous wonders
    in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
¹³ He divided the sea and caused them to pass through,
    and He made the waters to stand as a heap.
¹⁴ In the daytime He led them with a cloud,
    and all the night with a light of fire.
¹⁵ He split rocks in the wilderness
    and gave them abundance to drink as out of the great depths.
¹⁶ He brought streams out of the rock
    and caused waters to run down like rivers.

¹⁷ They sinned yet more against Him
    by provoking the Most High in the wilderness.
¹⁸ They tested God in their heart
    by demanding the food that they craved.
¹⁹ They spoke against God by saying,
    “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
²⁰ Behold, He struck the rock, so that the waters gushed out
    and the streams overflowed.
Can He give bread
    or provide meat for His people?”
²¹ Therefore the Lord heard this and was full of wrath;
    a fire was kindled against Jacob,
    and anger also came up against Israel,
²² because they did not believe in God
    nor trust in His deliverance.
²³ Yet He had commanded the skies above
    and opened the doors of heaven,
²⁴ and He rained down manna upon them to eat
    and gave them the grain of heaven.
²⁵ Man ate the food of mighty angels;
    He sent them bread in abundance.
²⁶ He caused an east wind to blow in the heavens,
    and by His power He brought out a south wind.
²⁷ He rained meat on them as dust,
    and winged birds as the sand of the sea;
²⁸ and He let them fall in the midst of their camp
    all around their habitations.
²⁹ So they ate and were satisfied,
    for He gave them their own desire;
³⁰ while they were not yet filled up,
    and while the meat was still in their mouths,
³¹ the wrath of God came upon them,
    and He killed the strongest of them
    and struck down the young men of Israel.

³² For all this they sinned still,
    and did not believe despite His wondrous works.
³³ Therefore He made their days vanish like a breath,
    and their years in trouble.
³⁴ When He killed them, then they sought Him;
    they turned back and longed for God.
³⁵ They remembered that God was their rock,
    and the Most High God their redeemer.
³⁶ Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth,
    and they lied to Him with their tongues;
³⁷ for their heart was not devoted to Him,
    neither were they committed to His covenant.
³⁸ But He being full of compassion
    forgave their iniquity
    and did not destroy them.
He constantly restrained His anger,
    and did not stir up all His wrath;
³⁹ for He remembered that they were but flesh,
    like a wind that passes away and does not return.

⁴⁰ How often they provoked Him in the wilderness
    and grieved Him in the desert!
⁴¹ Yes, they tested God over and over,
    and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They did not remember His power,
    nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy,
⁴³ how He had performed His signs in Egypt
    and His wonders in the fields of Zoan:
⁴⁴ and He turned their rivers into blood,
    so that they could not drink from their streams.
⁴⁵ He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them,
    and frogs, which destroyed them.
⁴⁶ He gave also their crops to the grasshopper
    and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
⁴⁷ He destroyed their vines with hail
    and their sycamore trees with frost.
⁴⁸ He gave up their cattle also to the hail
    and their flocks to thunderbolts.
⁴⁹ He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger,
    wrath, indignation, and trouble,
    by sending angels bringing disaster.
⁵⁰ He made a path for His anger;
    He did not spare them from death,
    but gave their lives over to the plague,
⁵¹ And struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
    the first fruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
⁵² Then He led out His own people like sheep
    and guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
⁵³ He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid,
    but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
⁵⁴ He brought them to the border of His holy land,
    to the mountain that His right hand had acquired.
⁵⁵ He cast out the nations also before them,
    and divided for them their tribal allotments,
    and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.

⁵⁶ Yet they tested and provoked the Most High God,
    and did not keep His commands,
⁵⁷ but turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers;
    they turned aside like a deceitful bow.
⁵⁸ For they provoked Him to anger with their high places
    and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images.
⁵⁹ When God heard this, He was full of wrath
    and greatly rejected Israel
⁶⁰ so that He left the tabernacle at Shiloh,
    the tent where He lived among people,
⁶¹ and delivered His strength to captivity
    and His glory into the enemy’s hand.
⁶² He gave His people over also to the sword;
    He was enraged with His inheritance.
⁶³ The fire consumed their young men,
    and their maidens were not given to marriage in song.
⁶⁴ Their priests fell by the sword,
    and their widows made no lamentation.

⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep,
    and like a mighty man who shouts because of wine.
⁶⁶ He routed His enemies back,
    and He made them a perpetual reproach.
⁶⁷ Moreover, He rejected the tent of Joseph,
    and He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
⁶⁸ but chose the tribe of Judah,
    Mount Zion which He loves.
⁶⁹ He built His sanctuary like the high heavens,
    like the earth that He has established perpetually.
⁷⁰ He chose David His servant
    and took him from the sheepfolds;
⁷¹ from following the nursing ewes He brought him
    to shepherd Jacob His people,
    and Israel His inheritance.
⁷² So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart
    and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.