⁽¹⁾ Listen, my people, to my teaching;
turn your ears to the words from my mouth.
² I will speak to you in parables
and explain mysteries from days of old.

³ The things which we have heard and known,
and which our fathers told us
⁴ we will not hide from their descendants;
we will tell the generation to come
the praises of Adonai and his strength,
the wonders that he has performed.

⁵ He raised up a testimony in Ya‘akov
and established a Torah in Isra’el.
He commanded our ancestors
to make this known to their children,
⁶ so that the next generation would know it,
the children not yet born,
who would themselves arise
and tell their own children,
⁷ who could then put their confidence in God,
not forgetting God’s deeds,
but obeying his mitzvot.
⁸ Then they would not be like their ancestors,
a stubborn, rebellious generation,
a generation with unprepared hearts,
with spirits unfaithful to God.

⁹ The people of Efrayim, though armed with bows and arrows,
turned their backs on the day of battle.
¹⁰ They did not keep the covenant of God
and refused to live by his Torah.
¹¹ They forgot what he had done,
his wonders which he had shown them.

¹² He had done wonderful things
in the presence of their ancestors
in the land of Egypt,
in the region of Tzo‘an.
¹³ He split the sea and made them pass through,
he made the waters stand up like a wall.
¹⁴ He also led them by day with a cloud
and all night long with light from a fire.
¹⁵ He broke apart the rocks in the desert
and let them drink as if from boundless depths;
¹⁶ yes, he brought streams out of the rock,
making the water flow down like rivers.

¹⁷ Yet they sinned still more against him,
rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High;
¹⁸ in their hearts they tested God
by demanding food that would satisfy their cravings.
¹⁹ Yes, they spoke against God by asking,
“Can God spread a table in the desert?
²⁰ True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out,
until the vadis overflowed;
but what about bread? Can he give that?
Can he provide meat for his people?”

²¹ Therefore, when Adonai heard, he was angry;
fire blazed up against Ya‘akov;
his anger mounted against Isra’el;
²² because they had no faith in God,
no trust in his power to save.

²³ So he commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven.
²⁴ He rained down man on them as food;
he gave them grain from heaven —
²⁵ mortals ate the bread of angels;
he provided for them to the full.

²⁶ He stirred up the east wind in heaven,
brought on the south wind by his power,
²⁷ and rained down meat on them like dust,
birds flying thick as the sand on the seashore.
²⁸ He let them fall in the middle of their camp,
all around their tents.
²⁹ So they ate till they were satisfied;
he gave them what they craved.
³⁰ They were still fulfilling their craving,
the food was still in their mouths,
³¹ when the anger of God rose up against them
and slaughtered their strongest men,
laying low the young men of Isra’el.

³² Still, they kept on sinning
and put no faith in his wonders.
³³ Therefore, he ended their days in futility
and their years in terror.
³⁴ When he brought death among them, they would seek him;
they would repent and seek God eagerly,
³⁵ remembering that God was their Rock,
El ‘Elyon their Redeemer.

³⁶ But they tried to deceive him with their words,
they lied to him with their tongues;
³⁷ for their hearts were not right with him,
and they were unfaithful to his covenant.
³⁸ Yet he, because he is full of compassion,
forgave their sin and did not destroy;
many times he turned away his anger
and didn’t rouse all his wrath.
³⁹ So he remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that blows past and does not return.

⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him in the wastelands!
⁴¹ Repeatedly they challenged God
and pained the Holy One of Isra’el.
⁴² They didn’t remember how he used his hand
on the day he redeemed them from their enemy,
⁴³ how he displayed his signs in Egypt,
his wonders in the region of Tzo‘an.

⁴⁴ He turned their rivers into blood,
so they couldn’t drink from their streams.
⁴⁵ He sent swarms of flies, which devoured them,
and frogs, which destroyed them.
⁴⁶ He gave their harvest to shearer-worms,
the fruit of their labor to locusts.
⁴⁷ He destroyed their vineyards with hail
and their sycamore-figs with frost.
⁴⁸ Their cattle too he gave over to the hail
and their flocks to lightning bolts.

⁴⁹ He sent over them his fierce anger,
fury, indignation and trouble,
with a company of destroying angels
⁵⁰ to clear a path for his wrath.
He did not spare them from death,
but gave them over to the plague,
⁵¹ striking all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.

⁵² But his own people he led out like sheep,
guiding them like a flock in the desert.
⁵³ He led them safely, and they weren’t afraid,
even when the sea overwhelmed their foes.
⁵⁴ He brought them to his holy land,
to the hill-country won by his right hand.
⁵⁵ He expelled nations before them,
apportioned them property to inherit
and made Isra’el’s tribes live in their tents.

⁵⁶ Yet they tested El ‘Elyon
and rebelled against him,
refusing to obey his instructions.
⁵⁷ They turned away and were faithless, like their fathers;
they were unreliable, like a bow without tension.
⁵⁸ They provoked him with their high places
and made him jealous with their idols.

⁵⁹ God heard, and he was angry;
he came to detest Isra’el completely.
⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,
the tent he had made where he could live among people.
⁶¹ He gave his strength into exile,
his pride to the power of the foe.
⁶² He gave his people over to the sword
and grew angry with his own heritage.
⁶³ Fire consumed their young men,
their virgins had no wedding-song,
⁶⁴ their cohanim fell by the sword,
and their widows could not weep.

⁶⁵ Then Adonai awoke, as if from sleep,
like a warrior shouting for joy from wine.
⁶⁶ He struck his foes, driving them back
and putting them to perpetual shame.

⁶⁷ Rejecting the tents of Yosef
and passing over the tribe of Efrayim,
⁶⁸ he chose the tribe of Y’hudah,
Mount Tziyon, which he loved.
⁶⁹ He built his sanctuary like the heights;
like the earth, he made it to last forever.

⁷⁰ He chose David to be his servant,
taking him from the sheep-yards;
⁷¹ from tending nursing ewes he brought him
to shepherd Ya‘akov his people,
Isra’el his heritage.
⁷² With upright heart he shepherded them
and guided them with skillful hands.