Book of Common Prayer

⁹ The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows,
    turned back on the day of battle;
¹⁰ they did not keep God’s covenant
    and refused to live by his law.
¹¹ They forgot what he had done,
    the wonders he had shown them.
¹² He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors
    in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
¹³ He divided the sea and led them through;
    he made the water stand up like a wall.
¹⁴ He guided them with the cloud by day
    and with light from the fire all night.
¹⁵ He split the rocks in the wilderness
    and gave them water as abundant as the seas;
¹⁶ he brought streams out of a rocky crag
    and made water flow down like rivers.

¹⁷ But they continued to sin against him,
    rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.
¹⁸ They wilfully put God to the test
    by demanding the food they craved.
¹⁹ They spoke against God;
    they said, ‘Can God really
    spread a table in the wilderness?
²⁰ True, he struck the rock,
    and water gushed out,
    streams flowed abundantly,
but can he also give us bread?
    Can he supply meat for his people?’
²¹ When the Lord heard them, he was furious;
    his fire broke out against Jacob,
    and his wrath rose against Israel,
²² for they did not believe in God
    or trust in his deliverance.
²³ Yet he gave a command to the skies above
    and opened the doors of the heavens;
²⁴ he rained down manna for the people to eat,
    he gave them the grain of heaven.
²⁵ Human beings ate the bread of angels;
    he sent them all the food they could eat.
²⁶ He let loose the east wind from the heavens
    and by his power made the south wind blow.
²⁷ He rained meat down on them like dust,
    birds like sand on the seashore.
²⁸ He made them come down inside their camp,
    all around their tents.
²⁹ They ate till they were gorged –
    he had given them what they craved.
³⁰ But before they turned from what they craved,
    even while the food was still in their mouths,
³¹ God’s anger rose against them;
    he put to death the sturdiest among them,
    cutting down the young men of Israel.

³² In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;
    in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.
³³ So he ended their days in futility
    and their years in terror.
³⁴ Whenever God slew them, they would seek him;
    they eagerly turned to him again.
³⁵ They remembered that God was their Rock,
    that God Most High was their Redeemer.
³⁶ But then they would flatter him with their mouths,
    lying to him with their tongues;
³⁷ their hearts were not loyal to him,
    they were not faithful to his covenant.
³⁸ Yet he was merciful;
    he forgave their iniquities
    and did not destroy them.
Time after time he restrained his anger
    and did not stir up his full wrath.
³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh,
    a passing breeze that does not return.

⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
    and grieved him in the wasteland!
⁴¹ Again and again they put God to the test;
    they vexed the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They did not remember his power –
    the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,
⁴³ the day he displayed his signs in Egypt,
    his wonders in the region of Zoan.
⁴⁴ He turned their river into blood;
    they could not drink from their streams.
⁴⁵ He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,
    and frogs that devastated them.
⁴⁶ He gave their crops to the grasshopper,
    their produce to the locust.
⁴⁷ He destroyed their vines with hail
    and their sycamore-figs with sleet.
⁴⁸ He gave over their cattle to the hail,
    their livestock to bolts of lightning.
⁴⁹ He unleashed against them his hot anger,
    his wrath, indignation and hostility –
    a band of destroying angels.
⁵⁰ He prepared a path for his anger;
    he did not spare them from death
    but gave them over to the plague.
⁵¹ He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt,
    the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.
⁵² But he brought his people out like a flock;
    he led them like sheep through the wilderness.
⁵³ He guided them safely, so they were unafraid;
    but the sea engulfed their enemies.
⁵⁴ And so he brought them to the border of his holy land,
    to the hill country his right hand had taken.
⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them
    and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance;
    he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.

⁵⁶ But they put God to the test
    and rebelled against the Most High;
    they did not keep his statutes.
⁵⁷ Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless,
    as unreliable as a faulty bow.
⁵⁸ They angered him with their high places;
    they aroused his jealousy with their idols.
⁵⁹ When God heard them, he was furious;
    he rejected Israel completely.
⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
    the tent he had set up among humans.
⁶¹ He sent the ark of his might into captivity,
    his splendour into the hands of the enemy.
⁶² He gave his people over to the sword;
    he was furious with his inheritance.
⁶³ Fire consumed their young men,
    and their young women had no wedding songs;
⁶⁴ their priests were put to the sword,
    and their widows could not weep.

⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
    as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine.
⁶⁶ He beat back his enemies;
    he put them to everlasting shame.
⁶⁷ Then he rejected the tents of Joseph,
    he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
⁶⁸ but he chose the tribe of Judah,
    Mount Zion, which he loved.
⁶⁹ He built his sanctuary like the heights,
    like the earth that he established for ever.
⁷⁰ He chose David his servant
    and took him from the sheepfolds;
⁷¹ from tending the sheep he brought him
    to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
    of Israel his inheritance.
⁷² And David shepherded them with integrity of heart;
    with skilful hands he led them.