Book of Common Prayer

78 Hear my teaching, my people.
    Turn 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 Yahweh,
    his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done.
⁵ For he established a covenant in Jacob,
    and appointed a teaching in Israel,
    which he commanded our fathers,
    that they should make them known to their children;
⁶ that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born;
    who should arise and tell their children,
⁷ that they might set their hope in God,
    and not forget God’s deeds,
    but keep his commandments,
⁸ and might not be as their fathers—
    a stubborn and rebellious generation,
    a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal,
    whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
⁹ The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows,
    turned back in the day of battle.
¹⁰ They didn’t keep God’s covenant,
    and refused to walk in his law.
¹¹ They forgot his doings,
    his wondrous deeds that he had shown them.
¹² He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers,
    in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
¹³ He split the sea, and caused them to pass through.
    He made the waters stand as a heap.
¹⁴ In the daytime he also led them with a cloud,
    and all night with a light of fire.
¹⁵ He split 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 they still went on to sin against him,
    to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
¹⁸ They tempted God in their heart
    by asking food according to their desire.
¹⁹ Yes, they spoke against God.
    They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
²⁰ Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out,
    and streams overflowed.
Can he give bread also?
    Will he provide meat for his people?”
²¹ Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry.
    A fire was kindled against Jacob,
    anger also went up against Israel,
²² because they didn’t believe in God,
    and didn’t trust in his salvation.
²³ Yet he commanded the skies above,
    and opened the doors of heaven.
²⁴ He rained down manna on them to eat,
    and gave them food from the sky.
²⁵ Man ate the bread of angels.
    He sent them food to the full.
²⁶ He caused the east wind to blow in the sky.
    By his power he guided the south wind.
²⁷ He also rained meat on them as the dust,
    winged birds as the sand of the seas.
²⁸ He let them fall in the middle of their camp,
    around their habitations.
²⁹ So they ate, and were well filled.
    He gave them their own desire.
³⁰ They didn’t turn from their cravings.
    Their food was yet in their mouths,
³¹     when the anger of God went up against them,
    killed some of their strongest,
    and struck down the young men of Israel.
³² For all this they still sinned,
    and didn’t believe in his wondrous works.
³³ Therefore he consumed their days in vanity,
    and their years in terror.
³⁴ When he killed them, then they inquired after him.
    They returned and sought God earnestly.
³⁵ They remembered that God was their rock,
    the Most High God, their redeemer.
³⁶ But they flattered him with their mouth,
    and lied to him with their tongue.
³⁷ For their heart was not right with him,
    neither were they faithful in his covenant.
³⁸ But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them.
    Yes, many times he turned his anger away,
    and didn’t stir up all his wrath.
³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh,
    a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again.
⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness,
    and grieved him in the desert!
⁴¹ They turned again and tempted God,
    and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They didn’t remember his hand,
    nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;
⁴³ how he set his signs in Egypt,
    his wonders in the field of Zoan,
⁴⁴ he 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 also gave their increase to the caterpillar,
    and their labor to the locust.
⁴⁷ He destroyed their vines with hail,
    their sycamore fig trees with frost.
⁴⁸ He also gave over their livestock to the hail,
    and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
⁴⁹ He threw on them the fierceness of his anger,
    wrath, indignation, and trouble,
    and a band of angels of evil.
⁵⁰ He made a path for his anger.
    He didn’t spare their soul from death,
    but gave their life over to the pestilence,
⁵¹ and struck all the firstborn in Egypt,
    the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.
⁵² But he led out his own people like sheep,
    and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
⁵³ He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid,
    but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
⁵⁴ He brought them to the border of his sanctuary,
    to this mountain, which his right hand had taken.
⁵⁵ He also drove out the nations before them,
    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 didn’t keep his testimonies,
⁵⁷ but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers.
    They were twisted like a deceitful bow.
⁵⁸ For they provoked him to anger with their high places,
    and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
⁵⁹ When God heard this, he was angry,
    and greatly abhorred Israel,
⁶⁰ so that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh,
    the tent which he placed among men,
⁶¹ and delivered his strength into captivity,
    his glory into the adversary’s hand.
⁶² He also gave his people over to the sword,
    and was angry with his inheritance.
⁶³ Fire devoured their young men.
    Their virgins had no wedding song.
⁶⁴ Their priests fell by the sword,
    and their widows couldn’t weep.
⁶⁵ Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep,
    like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.
⁶⁶ He struck his adversaries backward.
    He put them to a perpetual reproach.
⁶⁷ Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph,
    and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim,
⁶⁸ But chose the tribe of Judah,
    Mount Zion which he loved.
⁶⁹ He built his sanctuary like the heights,
    like the earth which he has established forever.
⁷⁰ He also chose David 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 skillfulness of his hands.