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I Will Open My Mouth in Parables

Psalm subtitle:A Maskil of Asaph.

Verse1Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.

Verse2I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

Verse3that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.

Verse4We 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.

Verse5For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,

Verse6that the coming generation would know them— even children yet to be born— to arise and tell their own children

Verse7that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.

Verse8Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Verse9The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.

Verse10They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.

Verse11They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

Verse12He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

Verse13He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

Verse14He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

Verse15He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

Verse16He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.

Verse17But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

Verse18They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

Verse19They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

Verse20When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”

Verse21Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,

Verse22because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

Verse23Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.

Verse24He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.

Verse25Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.

Verse26He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.

Verse27He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

Verse28He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

Verse29So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

Verse30Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

Verse31God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

Verse32In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

Verse33So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.

Verse34When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

Verse35And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

Verse36But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.

Verse37Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

Verse38And 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.

Verse39He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

Verse40How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

Verse41Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Verse42They did not remember His power — the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

Verse43when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

Verse44He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.

Verse45He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

Verse46He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.

Verse47He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

Verse48He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

Verse49He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity— a band of destroying angels.

Verse50He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.

Verse51He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.

Verse52He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

Verse53He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.

Verse54He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

Verse55He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

Verse56But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.

Verse57They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

Verse58They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

Verse59On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

Verse60He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.

Verse61He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

Verse62He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

Verse63Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

Verse64His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

Verse65Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

Verse66He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.

Verse67He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

Verse68But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.

Verse69He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.

Verse70He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;

Verse71from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.

Verse72So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.