29They ate till they had more than enough,

for he had given them what they craved.

30But before they turned from the food they craved,

even while it was still in their mouths,

31God’s anger rose against them;

he put to death the sturdiest among them,

cutting down the young men of Israel.

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

in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.

33So he ended their days in futility

and their years in terror.

34Whenever God slew them, they would seek him;

they eagerly turned to him again.

35They remembered that God was their Rock,

that God Most High was their Redeemer.

36But then they would flatter him with their mouths,

lying to him with their tongues;

37their hearts were not loyal to him,

they were not faithful to his covenant.

38Yet he was merciful;

he forgave their iniquities

and did not destroy them.

Time after time he restrained his anger

and did not stir up his full wrath.

39He remembered that they were but flesh,

a passing breeze that does not return.

40How often they rebelled against him in the desert

and grieved him in the wasteland!

41Again and again they put God to the test;

they vexed the Holy One of Israel.

42They did not remember his power—

the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,

43the day he displayed his miraculous signs in Egypt,

his wonders in the region of Zoan.

44He turned their rivers to blood;

they could not drink from their streams.

45He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,

and frogs that devastated them.

46He gave their crops to the grasshopper,

their produce to the locust.

47He destroyed their vines with hail

and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

48He gave over their cattle to the hail,

their livestock to bolts of lightning.

49He unleashed against them his hot anger,

his wrath, indignation and hostility—

a band of destroying angels.

50He prepared a path for his anger;

he did not spare them from death

but gave them over to the plague.

51He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt,

the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.

52But he brought his people out like a flock;

he led them like sheep through the desert.

53He guided them safely, so they were unafraid;

but the sea engulfed their enemies.

54Thus he brought them to the border of his holy land,

to the hill country his right hand had taken.

55He drove out nations before them

and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance;

he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.

56But they put God to the test

and rebelled against the Most High;

they did not keep his statutes.

57Like their fathers they were disloyal and faithless,

as unreliable as a faulty bow.

58They angered him with their high places;

they aroused his jealousy with their idols.

59When God heard them, he was very angry;

he rejected Israel completely.

60He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,

the tent he had set up among men.

61He sent [the ark of] his might into captivity,

his splendor into the hands of the enemy.

62He gave his people over to the sword;

he was very angry with his inheritance.

63Fire consumed their young men,

and their maidens had no wedding songs;

64their priests were put to the sword,

and their widows could not weep.

65Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,

as a man wakes from the stupor of wine.

66He beat back his enemies;

he put them to everlasting shame.

67Then he rejected the tents of Joseph,

he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;

68but he chose the tribe of Judah,

Mount Zion, which he loved.

69He built his sanctuary like the heights,

like the earth that he established forever.

70He chose David his servant

and took him from the sheep pens;

71from tending the sheep he brought him

to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,

of Israel his inheritance.

72And David shepherded them with integrity of heart;

with skillful hands he led them.