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