An instruction of Asaph.

1Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2I will open my mouth in a parable; I will speak dark sayings of old,

3Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

4We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generations to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He has done,

5For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should teach them to their children;

6So that the generation to come might know them, children which shall be born; and they shall arise and tell them to their children,

7So that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments;

8And might not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set their heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful with God.

9The children of Ephraim, armed shooters of bows, turned back in the day of battle.

10They did not keep the covenant of God and refused to walk in His law.

11And they forgot His works and His wonders which He had shown them.

12He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

13He divided the sea and caused them to pass through; and He made the waters to stand in a heap.

14And in the daytime He led them with a cloud and all the night with a light of fire.

15He split the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink, as from the great depths.

16He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers.

17Yet they continued to sin still more against Him by rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness.

18And they tempted God in their heart by asking food for their lust.

19Yea, they spoke against God; they said, "Can God set a table in the wilderness?

20Behold, He struck the rock so that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed! Can He also give bread? Can He provide flesh for His people?"

21Therefore the LORD heard and was furious; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel

22Because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His salvation,

23Though He had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of heaven;

24And He had rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them of the grain of heaven.

25Man ate the food of angels; He sent them meat to the full.

26He caused an east wind to blow in heaven, and by His power He brought in the south wind.

27And He also rained flesh upon them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea;

28And He let them fall in the midst of their camp, all around their tents.

29So they ate and were filled to the full, for He gave them that which they craved.

30They were not turned away from their lust, but while their food was still in their mouths,

31The wrath of God came upon them and killed the strongest of them, and struck down the chosen men of Israel.

32For all this they still sinned and did not believe in His wonderful works.

33Therefore He ended their days in vanity and their years in terror.

34When He slew them, then they sought Him; and they turned back and sought after God earnestly.

35And they remembered that God was their Rock, and the Most High God was their Redeemer.

36Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouths, and they lied to Him with their tongues,

37For their heart was not steadfast with Him; neither were they faithful in His covenant.

38But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them; yea, many times He turned His anger away and did not stir up all His wrath,

39For He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away and does not come again.

40How often did they provoke Him in the wilderness and grieve Him in the desert!

41And still again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.

42They did not remember His hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy;

43How He had wrought His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

44He turned their rivers into blood, so that they could not drink from their streams.

45He sent different kinds of flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them.

46He also gave their crops to the stripping caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.

47He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with sleet.

48He gave up their livestock to the hail, and their flocks to bolts of fire.

49He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath and fury and trouble, by sending evil angels among them.

50He leveled a path for His anger; He did not save their soul from death, but gave their life over to the plague,

51And struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham;

52But He made His own people to go forth like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

53And He led them on safely, so that they did not fear; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

54And He brought them to the border of His holy land, to this mountain, which His right hand had bought.

55He also drove out the nations before them, and divided them an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.

56Yet they tempted and provoked the Most High God, and kept not His testimonies;

57But they turned back and dealt treacherously like their fathers; they were turned aside like a deceiving bow,

58For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their carved images.

59When God heard, He was wroth and greatly abhorred Israel;

60So that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among men,

61And delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy's hands.

62He also gave His people over to the sword, and vented His wrath upon His inheritance.

63The fire devoured their young men; and their maidens were not given in marriage.

64Their priests fell by the sword; and their widows were not able to make a lamentation.

65Then the LORD awakened like one out of sleep, like a mighty man recovering from wine.

66And He drove His enemies backward; He put them to perpetual reproach.

67And He rejected the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim;

68But chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which He loved.

69And He built His holy sanctuary like the heights of heaven, like the earth which He has founded forever.

70He also chose David His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;

71From following the ewes great with young, He brought him to feed Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance.

72And he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.