1  “Give ear, ^kO heavens, and I will speak,

and let ^lthe earth hear the words of my mouth.

2  May ^mmy teaching drop as the rain,

my speech distill as the dew,

like gentle rain upon the tender grass,

and ⁿlike showers upon the herb.

3  For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;

ascribe ^ogreatness to our God!

4  ^p“The Rock, ^qhis work is perfect,

for ^rall his ways are justice.

A God of faithfulness and ^swithout iniquity,

just and upright is he.

5  They have dealt corruptly with him;

they are no longer his children ^tbecause they are blemished;

they are ^ua crooked and twisted generation.

6  Do you thus repay the Lord,

you foolish and senseless people?

Is not he ^vyour father, who ^wcreated you,

who ^xmade you and established you?

7  ^yRemember the days of old;

consider the years of many generations;

^zask your father, and he will show you,

your elders, and they will tell you.

8  When the Most High ^agave to the nations their inheritance,

when he ^bdivided mankind,

he fixed the borders¹ of the peoples

according to the number of the sons of God.²

9  But the Lord’s portion is his people,

Jacob his allotted heritage.

10  “He found him ^cin a desert land,

and in the howling waste of the wilderness;

he ^dencircled him, he cared for him,

he ^ekept him as the apple of his eye.

11  ^fLike an eagle that stirs up its nest,

that flutters over its young,

spreading out its wings, catching them,

bearing them on its pinions,

12  ^gthe Lord alone guided him,

^hno foreign god was with him.

13  ⁱHe made him ride on the high places of the land,

and he ate the produce of the field,

and he suckled him with ^jhoney out of the rock,

and ^koil out of ^lthe flinty rock.

14  Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,

with fat³ of lambs,

rams of Bashan and goats,

with the very finest⁴ of the wheat—

and you drank foaming wine made from ^mthe blood of the grape.

15  “But ⁿJeshurun grew fat, and ^okicked;

^pyou grew fat, stout, and sleek;

^qthen he forsook God ^rwho made him

and scoffed at ^sthe Rock of his salvation.

16  ^tThey stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;

with abominations they provoked him to anger.

17  ^uThey sacrificed to demons that were not God,

to gods they had never known,

to ^vnew gods that had come recently,

whom your fathers had never dreaded.

18  You were unmindful of ^wthe Rock that bore⁵ you,

and you ^xforgot the God who gave you birth.

19  ^y“The Lord saw it and spurned them,

because of the provocation of ^zhis sons and his daughters.

20  And he said, ^a‘I will hide my face from them;

I will see what their end will be,

for they are a perverse generation,

children in whom is no faithfulness.

21  ^bThey have made me jealous with what is no god;

they have provoked me to anger ^cwith their idols.

So ^dI will make them jealous with those who are no people;

I will provoke them to anger with ^ea foolish nation.

22  For ^fa fire is kindled by my anger,

and it burns to ^gthe depths of Sheol,

devours the earth and its increase,

and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23  “‘And I will heap disasters upon them;

^hI will spend my arrows on them;

24  they shall be wasted with hunger,

and devoured by plague

and poisonous pestilence;

I will send ⁱthe teeth of beasts against them,

with the venom of ^jthings that crawl in the dust.

25  ^kOutdoors the sword shall bereave,

and indoors terror,

for young man and woman alike,

the nursing child with the man of gray hairs.

26  ^lI would have said, “I will cut them to pieces;

^mI will wipe them from human memory,”

27  had I not feared provocation by the enemy,

lest their adversaries should misunderstand,

lest they should say, ⁿ“Our hand is triumphant,

it was not the Lord who did all this.”’