⁴ The Rock, his work is perfect,
    and all his ways are just.
A faithful God, without deceit,
    just and upright is he;
⁵ yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him,^[a]
    a perverse and crooked generation.
⁶ Do you thus repay the Lord,
    O foolish and senseless people?
Is not he your father, who created you,
    who made you and established you?
⁷ Remember the days of old,
    consider the years long past;
ask your father, and he will inform you;
    your elders, and they will tell you.
⁸ When the Most High^[b] apportioned the nations,
    when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
    according to the number of the gods;^[c]
9 the Lord’s own portion was his people,
    Jacob his allotted share.

¹⁰ He sustained^[d] him in a desert land,
    in a howling wilderness waste;
he shielded him, cared for him,
    guarded him as the apple of his eye.
¹¹ As an eagle stirs up its nest,
    and hovers over its young;
as it spreads its wings, takes them up,
    and bears them aloft on its pinions,
¹² the Lord alone guided him;
    no foreign god was with him.
¹³ He set him atop the heights of the land,
    and fed him with^[e] produce of the field;
he nursed him with honey from the crags,
    with oil from flinty rock;
¹⁴ curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
    with fat of lambs and rams;
Bashan bulls and goats,
    together with the choicest wheat—
    you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.
¹⁵ Jacob ate his fill;^[f]
    Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked.
    You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!
He abandoned God who made him,
    and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
¹⁶ They made him jealous with strange gods,
    with abhorrent things they provoked him.
¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not God,
    to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
    whom your ancestors had not feared.
¹⁸ You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;^[g]
    you forgot the God who gave you birth.

¹⁹ The Lord saw it, and was jealous;^[h]
    he spurned^[i] his sons and daughters.
²⁰ He said: I will hide my face from them,
    I will see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
    children in whom there is no faithfulness.
²¹ They made me jealous with what is no god,
    provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
    provoke them with a foolish nation.
²² For a fire is kindled by my anger,
    and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the earth and its increase,
    and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
²³ I will heap disasters upon them,
    spend my arrows against them:
²⁴ wasting hunger,
    burning consumption,
    bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them,
    with venom of things crawling in the dust.
²⁵ In the street the sword shall bereave,
    and in the chambers terror,
for young man and woman alike,
    nursing child and old gray head.
²⁶ I thought to scatter them^[j]
    and blot out the memory of them from humankind;
²⁷ but I feared provocation by the enemy,
    for their adversaries might misunderstand
and say, “Our hand is triumphant;
    it was not the Lord who did all this.”

²⁸ They are a nation void of sense;
    there is no understanding in them.
²⁹ If they were wise, they would understand this;
    they would discern what the end would be.
³⁰ How could one have routed a thousand,
    and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
    the Lord had given them up?
³¹ Indeed their rock is not like our Rock;
    our enemies are fools.^[k]
32 Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom,
    from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison,
    their clusters are bitter;
³³ their wine is the poison of serpents,
    the cruel venom of asps.

³⁴ Is not this laid up in store with me,
    sealed up in my treasuries?
³⁵ Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
    for the time when their foot shall slip;
because the day of their calamity is at hand,
    their doom comes swiftly.

³⁶ Indeed the Lord will vindicate his people,
    have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
    neither bond nor free remaining.
³⁷ Then he will say: Where are their gods,
    the rock in which they took refuge,
³⁸ who ate the fat of their sacrifices,
    and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up and help you,
    let them be your protection!

³⁹ See now that I, even I, am he;
    there is no god besides me.
I kill and I make alive;
    I wound and I heal;
    and no one can deliver from my hand.
⁴⁰ For I lift up my hand to heaven,
    and swear: As I live forever,
⁴¹ when I whet my flashing sword,
    and my hand takes hold on judgment;
I will take vengeance on my adversaries,
    and will repay those who hate me.
⁴² I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
    and my sword shall devour flesh—
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
    from the long-haired enemy.

⁴³ Praise, O heavens,^[l] his people,
    worship him, all you gods!^[m]
For he will avenge the blood of his children,^[n]
    and take vengeance on his adversaries;
he will repay those who hate him,^[o]
    and cleanse the land for his people.^[p]

⁶ The Lord works vindication
    and justice for all who are oppressed.
⁷ He made known his ways to Moses,
    his acts to the people of Israel.
⁸ The Lord is merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
⁹ He will not always accuse,
    nor will he keep his anger forever.
¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as the heavens are high above the earth,
    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far he removes our transgressions from us.
¹³ As a father has compassion for his children,
    so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
¹⁴ For he knows how we were made;
    he remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵ As for mortals, their days are like grass;
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
¹⁶ for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
    and its place knows it no more.
¹⁷ But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
    on those who fear him,
    and his righteousness to children’s children,
¹⁸ to those who keep his covenant
    and remember to do his commandments.

¹⁹ The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
    and his kingdom rules over all.
²⁰ Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his bidding,
    obedient to his spoken word.
²¹ Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
    his ministers that do his will.
²² Bless the Lord, all his works,
    in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.