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- {An instruction.
Of Asaph.} Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
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- I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter riddles from of old,
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- Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us:
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- We will not hide [them] from their sons, shewing forth to the generation to come the praises of Jehovah, and his strength, and his marvellous works which he hath done.
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- For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;
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- That the generation to come might know [them], the children that should be born;
that they might rise up and tell [them] to their children,
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- And that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but observe his commandments;
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- And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that prepared not their heart, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
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- The sons of Ephraim, armed bowmen, turned back in the day of battle.
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- They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;
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- And forgot his doings, and his marvellous works which he had shewn them.
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- In the sight of their fathers had he done wonders, in the land of Egypt, the field of Zoan.
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- He clave the sea, and caused them to pass through;
and made the waters to stand as a heap;
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- And he led them with a cloud in the daytime, and all the night with the light of fire.
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- He clave rocks in the wilderness, and gave [them] drink as out of the depths, abundantly;
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- And he brought streams out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
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- Yet they still went on sinning against him, provoking the Most High in the desert;
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- And they tempted God in their heart, by asking meat for their lust;
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- And they spoke against God: they said, Is God able to prepare a table in the wilderness?
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- Behold, he smote the rock, and waters gushed out, and streams overflowed;
is he able to give bread also, or provide flesh for his people?
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- Therefore Jehovah heard, and was wroth;
and fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also went up against Israel:
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- Because they believed not in God, and confided not in his salvation;
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- Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of the heavens,
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- And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the corn of the heavens.
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- Man did eat the bread of the mighty;
he sent them provision to the full.
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- He caused the east wind to rise in the heavens, and by his strength he brought the south wind;
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- And he rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowl as the sand of the seas,
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- And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations:
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- And they did eat, and were well filled;
for that they lusted after, he brought to them.
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- They were not alienated from their lust, their meat was yet in their mouths,
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- When the anger of God went up against them;
and he slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.
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- For all this, they sinned still, and believed not in his marvellous works;
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- And he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
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- When he slew them, then they sought him, and returned and sought early after God;
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- And they remembered that God was their rock, and God, the Most High, their redeemer.
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- But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied unto him with their tongue;
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- For their heart was not firm toward him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.
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- But he was merciful: he forgave the iniquity, and destroyed [them] not;
but many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his fury:
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- And he remembered that they were flesh, a breath that passeth away and cometh not again.
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- How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!
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- And they turned again and tempted God, and grieved the Holy One of Israel.
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- They remembered not his hand, the day when he delivered them from the oppressor,
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- How he set his signs in Egypt, and his miracles in the field of Zoan;
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- And turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, that they could not drink;
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- He sent dog-flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them;
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- And he gave their increase unto the caterpillar, and their labour unto the locust;
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- He killed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with hail-stones;
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- And he delivered up their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to thunderbolts.
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- He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and distress, — a mission of angels of woes.
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- He made a way for his anger;
he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence;
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- And he smote all the firstborn in Egypt, the first-fruits of their vigour in the tents of Ham.
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- And he made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
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- And he led them safely, so that they were without fear;
and the sea covered their enemies.
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- And he brought them to his holy border, this mountain, which his right hand purchased;
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- And he drove out the nations before them, and allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
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- But they tempted and provoked God, the Most High, and kept not his testimonies,
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- And they drew back and dealt treacherously like their fathers: they turned like a deceitful bow.
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- And they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.
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- God heard, and was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel:
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- And he forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where he had dwelt among men,
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- And gave his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor;
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- And delivered up his people unto the sword, and was very wroth with his inheritance:
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- The fire consumed their young men, and their maidens were not praised in [nuptial] song;
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- Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.
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- Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep, like a mighty man that shouteth aloud by reason of wine;
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- And he smote his adversaries in the hinder part, and put them to everlasting reproach.
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- And he rejected the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim,
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- But chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved;
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- And he built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he hath founded for ever.
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- And he chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds:
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- From following the suckling-ewes, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.
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- And he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and led them by the skilfulness of his hands.
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