I Will Open My Mouth in Parables

A Maskil of Asaph.

¹ Give ear, O my people, to my instruction;^*

listen to the words of my mouth.

² I will open my mouth in parables;

I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

³ that we have heard and known

and our fathers have relayed to us.

⁴ We will not hide them from their children

but will declare to the next generation

the praises of the LORD and His might

and the wonders He has performed.

⁵ For He established a testimony in Jacob

and appointed a law in Israel,

which He commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

⁶ that the coming generation would know them—

even children yet to be born—

to arise and tell their own children

⁷ that they should put their confidence in God,

not forgetting His works,

but keeping His commandments.

⁸ Then they will not be like their fathers,

a stubborn and rebellious^* generation,

whose heart was not loyal,

whose spirit was not faithful to God.

⁹ The archers of Ephraim

turned back on the day of battle.

¹⁰ They failed to keep God’s covenant

and refused to live by His law.

¹¹ They forgot what He had done,

the wonders He had shown them.

¹² He worked wonders before their fathers

in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

¹³ He split the sea and brought them through;

He set the waters upright like a wall.

¹⁴ He led them with a cloud by day

and with a light of fire all night.

¹⁵ He split the rocks in the wilderness

and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

¹⁶ He brought streams from the stone

and made water flow down like rivers.

¹⁷ But they continued to sin against Him,

rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

¹⁸ They willfully tested God

by demanding the food they craved.

¹⁹ They spoke against God, saying,

“Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

²⁰ When He struck the rock, water gushed out

and torrents raged.

But can He also give bread

or supply His people with meat?”

²¹ Therefore the LORD heard

and was filled with wrath;

so a fire was kindled against Jacob,

and His anger flared against Israel,

²² because they did not believe God

or rely on His salvation.

²³ Yet He commanded the clouds above

and opened the doors of the heavens.

²⁴ He rained down manna for them to eat;

He gave them grain from heaven.

²⁵ Man ate the bread of angels;^*

He sent them food in abundance.

²⁶ He stirred^* the east wind from the heavens

and drove the south wind by His might.^*

²⁷ He rained^* meat on them like dust,

and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

²⁸ He felled them in the midst of their camp,

all around their dwellings.

²⁹ So they ate and were well filled,

for He gave them what they craved.

³⁰ Yet before they had filled^* their desire,

with the food still in their mouths,

³¹ God’s anger flared against them,

and He put to death their strongest

and subdued the young men of Israel.

³² In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;

despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

³³ So He ended their days in futility,

and their years in sudden terror.

³⁴ When He slew them, they would seek Him;

they repented and searched for God.

³⁵ And they remembered that God was their Rock,

that God Most High was their Redeemer.

³⁶ But they deceived Him with their mouths,

and lied to Him with their tongues.

³⁷ Their hearts were disloyal to Him,

and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

³⁸ And yet He was compassionate;

He forgave^* their iniquity and did not destroy them.

He often restrained His anger

and did not unleash His full wrath.

³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh,

a passing breeze that does not return.^*

⁴⁰ How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness

and grieved Him in the desert!

⁴¹ Again and again they tested God

and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴² They did not remember His power —

the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

⁴³ when He performed His signs in Egypt

and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

⁴⁴ He turned their rivers to blood,

and from their streams they could not drink.

⁴⁵ He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,

and frogs that devastated them.

⁴⁶ He gave their crops to the grasshopper,

the fruit of their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷ He killed their vines with hailstones

and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

⁴⁸ He abandoned their cattle to the hail

and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

⁴⁹ He unleashed His fury against them,

wrath, indignation, and calamity—

a band of destroying angels.

⁵⁰ He cleared a path for His anger;

He did not spare them from death

but delivered their lives to the plague.

⁵¹ He struck all the firstborn of Egypt,

the virility in the tents of Ham.

⁵² He led out His people like sheep

and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

⁵³ He led them safely, so they did not fear,

but the sea engulfed their enemies.

⁵⁴ He brought them to His holy land,

to the mountain His right hand had acquired.^*

⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them

and apportioned their inheritance;

He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶ But they tested and disobeyed God Most High,

for they did not keep His decrees.

⁵⁷ They turned back and were faithless like their fathers,

twisted like a faulty bow.

⁵⁸ They enraged Him with their high places

and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

⁵⁹ On hearing it, God was furious

and rejected Israel completely.

⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,

the tent^* He had pitched among men.

⁶¹ He delivered His strength^* to captivity,

and His splendor^* to the hand of the adversary.

⁶² He surrendered His people to the sword

because He was enraged by His heritage.

⁶³ Fire consumed His young men,

and their maidens were left without wedding songs.^*

⁶⁴ His priests fell by the sword,

but their widows could not lament.

⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,

like a mighty warrior^* overcome by wine.^*

⁶⁶ He beat back His foes;

He put them to everlasting shame.

⁶⁷ He rejected the tent of Joseph

and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁸ But He chose the tribe of Judah,

Mount Zion, which He loved.

⁶⁹ He built His sanctuary like the heights,

like the earth He has established forever.

⁷⁰ He chose David His servant

and took him from the sheepfolds;

⁷¹ from tending the ewes He brought him^*

to be shepherd of His people Jacob,

of Israel His inheritance.

⁷² So David shepherded them with integrity of heart

and guided them with skillful hands.