Book of Common Prayer

78 Give ear, O my people, to my ^[a]law:
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
² I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings of old,
³ Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
⁴ We will not hide them from their children,
Telling to the generation to come the praises of Jehovah,
And his strength, and his wondrous works that he hath done.
⁵ For he established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which he commanded our fathers,
That they should make them known to their children;
⁶ That the generation to come might know them, even the children that should be born;
Who should arise and tell them to their children,
⁷ That they might set their hope in God,
And not forget the works of God,
But keep his commandments,
⁸ And might not be as their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation ^[b]that set not their heart aright,
And whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
⁹ The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows,
Turned back in the day of battle.
¹⁰ They kept not the covenant of God,
And refused to walk in his law;
¹¹ And they forgat his doings,
And his wondrous works that he had showed them.
¹² Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers,
In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
¹³ He clave the sea, and caused them to pass through;
And he made the waters to stand as a heap.
¹⁴ In the day-time also he led them with a cloud,
And all the night with a light of fire.
¹⁵ He clave rocks in the wilderness,
And gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.
¹⁶ He brought streams also out of the rock,
And caused waters to run down like rivers.
¹⁷ Yet went they on still to sin against him,
To rebel against the Most High in ^[c]the desert.
¹⁸ And they tempted God in their heart
By asking food ^[d]according to their desire.
¹⁹ Yea, they spake against God;
They said, Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
²⁰ Behold, he smote the rock, so that waters gushed out,
And streams overflowed;
Can he give bread also?
Will he provide flesh for his people?
²¹ Therefore Jehovah heard, and was wroth;
And a fire was kindled against Jacob,
And anger also went up against Israel;
²² Because they believed not in God,
And trusted not in his salvation.
²³ Yet he commanded the skies above,
And opened the doors of heaven;
²⁴ And he rained down manna upon them to eat,
And gave them ^[e]food from heaven.
^25 [f]Man did eat the bread of the mighty:
He sent them food to the full.
²⁶ He ^[g]caused the east wind to blow in the heavens;
And by his power he guided the south wind.
²⁷ He rained flesh also upon them as the dust,
And winged birds as the sand of the seas:
²⁸ And he let it fall in the midst of their camp,
Round about their habitations.
²⁹ So they did eat, and were well filled;
And he gave them their own desire.
³⁰ They were not estranged from that which they desired,
Their food was yet in their mouths,
³¹ When the anger of God went up against them,
And slew of the fattest of them,
And smote down the young men of Israel.
³² For all this they sinned still,
And believed not in his wondrous works.
³³ Therefore their days did he consume in vanity,
And their years in terror.
³⁴ When he slew them, then they inquired after him;
And they returned and sought God earnestly.
³⁵ And they remembered that God was their rock,
And the Most High God their redeemer.
³⁶ But they flattered him with their mouth,
And lied unto him with their tongue.
³⁷ For their heart was not ^[h]right with him,
Neither were they faithful in his covenant.
³⁸ But he, being merciful, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not:
Yea, many a time turned he his anger away,
And did not stir up all his wrath.
³⁹ And he remembered that they were but flesh,
A wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.
⁴⁰ How oft did they rebel against him in the wilderness,
And grieve him in the desert!
⁴¹ And they turned again and tempted God,
And ^[i]provoked the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They remembered not his hand,
Nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;
⁴³ How he set his signs in Egypt,
And his wonders in the field of Zoan,
⁴⁴ And turned their rivers into blood,
And their streams, so that they could not drink.
⁴⁵ He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them;
And frogs, which destroyed them.
⁴⁶ He gave also their increase unto the caterpillar,
And their labor unto the locust.
⁴⁷ He ^[j]destroyed their vines with hail,
And their sycomore-trees with ^[k]frost.
⁴⁸ He gave over their cattle also to the hail,
And their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
⁴⁹ He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger,
Wrath, and indignation, and trouble,
^[l]A band of angels of evil.
⁵⁰ He ^[m]made a path for his anger;
He spared not their soul from death,
But gave ^[n]their life over to the pestilence,
⁵¹ And smote all the first-born in Egypt,
The ^[o]chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.
⁵² But he led forth his own people like sheep,
And guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
⁵³ And he led them safely, so that they feared not;
But the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
⁵⁴ And he brought them to ^[p]the border of his sanctuary,
To this ^[q]mountain, which his right hand had gotten.
⁵⁵ He drove out the nations also before them,
And allotted them for an inheritance by line,
And made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
⁵⁶ Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God,
And kept not his testimonies;
⁵⁷ But turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers:
They were 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 wroth,
And greatly abhorred Israel;
⁶⁰ So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh,
The tent which he placed among men;
⁶¹ And delivered his strength into captivity,
And his glory into the adversary’s hand.
⁶² He gave his people over also unto the sword,
And was wroth with his inheritance.
⁶³ Fire devoured their young men;
And their virgins had no marriage-song.
⁶⁴ Their priests fell by the sword;
And their widows made no lamentation.
⁶⁵ Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep,
Like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine.
⁶⁶ And he smote his adversaries backward:
He put them to a perpetual reproach.
⁶⁷ Moreover he refused the tent of Joseph,
And chose not the tribe of Ephraim,
⁶⁸ But chose the tribe of Judah,
The mount Zion which he loved.
⁶⁹ And he built his sanctuary like the heights,
Like the earth which he hath established for ever.
⁷⁰ He chose David also his servant,
And took him from the sheepfolds:
⁷¹ From following the ewes that have their young he brought him,
To be the shepherd of Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.
⁷² So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart,
And guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.