39
He remembered that they were only mortal beings, like a wind that blows by and is gone.
40
How often they rebelled against him in the desert; how many times they made him sad!
41
Again and again they put God to the test and brought pain to the Holy God of Israel.
42
They forgot his great power and the day when he saved them from their enemies
43
and performed his mighty acts and miracles in the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.
44
He turned the rivers into blood,
1 and the Egyptians had no water to drink.
45
He sent flies among them, that tormented them,
2 and frogs that ruined their land.
46
He sent locusts to eat their crops
3 and to destroy their fields.
47
He killed their grapevines with hail
4 and their fig trees with frost.
48
He killed their cattle with hail and their flocks with lightning.
49
He caused them great distress by pouring out his anger and fierce rage, which came as messengers of death.
50
He did not restrain his anger or spare their lives, but killed them with a plague.
51
He killed the first-born sons
5 of all the families of Egypt.
52
Then he led his people out like a shepherd
6 and guided them through the desert.
53
He led them safely, and they were not afraid;
7 but the sea came rolling over their enemies.
54
He brought them to his holy land,
8 to the mountains which he himself conquered.
55
He drove out the inhabitants as his people advanced;
9 he divided their land among the tribes of Israel and gave their homes to his people.
56
But they rebelled against Almighty God
10 and put him to the test. They did not obey his commandments,
57
but were rebellious and disloyal like their ancestors, unreliable as a crooked arrow.
58
They angered him with their heathen places of worship, and with their idols they made him furious.
59
God was angry when he saw it, so he rejected his people completely.
60
He abandoned his tent in Shiloh,
11 the home where he had lived among us.
61
He allowed our enemies to capture the Covenant Box,
12 the symbol of his power and glory.
62
He was angry with his own people and let them be killed by their enemies.
63
Young men were killed in war, and young women had no one to marry.
64
Priests died by violence, and their widows were not allowed to mourn.
65
At last the Lord woke up as though from sleep; he was like a strong man excited by wine.
66
He drove his enemies back in lasting and shameful defeat.
67
But he rejected the descendants of Joseph; he did not select the tribe of Ephraim.
68
Instead he chose the tribe of Judah and Mount Zion, which he dearly loves.
69
There he built his Temple like his home in heaven; he made it firm like the earth itself, secure for all time.
70
He chose his servant David;
13 he took him from the pastures,
71
where he looked after his flocks, and he made him king of Israel, the shepherd of the people of God.
72
David took care of them with unselfish devotion and led them with skill.