Oh, That My People Would Listen to Me
To the choirmaster: according to fThe Gittith.1 Of gAsaph.
1 hSing aloud to God our strength;
ishout for joy to the God of Jacob!
2 Raise a song; sound jthe tambourine,
kthe sweet lyre with kthe harp.
3 Blow the trumpet at lthe new moon,
at the full moon, on our feast day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel,
a rule2 of the God of Jacob.
5 He made it ma decree in nJoseph
when he owent out over3 the land of Egypt.
pI hear a language qI had not known:
6 “I rrelieved your4 shoulder of sthe burden;
your hands were freed from the basket.
7 In distress you tcalled, and I delivered you;
I uanswered you in the secret place of thunder;
I vtested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
8 wHear, O my people, while I admonish you!
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9 There shall be no xstrange god among you;
you shall not bow down to a yforeign god.
10 zI am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
aOpen your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 “But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel bwould not submit to me.
12 So I cgave them over to their dstubborn hearts,
to follow their own ecounsels.
13 fOh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would gwalk in my ways!
14 I would soon subdue their enemies
and hturn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the Lord would icringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.
16 But he would feed you5 with jthe finest of the wheat,
and with khoney from the rock I would satisfy you.”
Woe to Those Who Go Down to Egypt
1 Woe1 to vthose who go down to Egypt for help
and rely on horses,
who wtrust in chariots because they are many
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but xdo not look to the Holy One of Israel
or consult the Lord!
2 And yyet he is wise and brings disaster;
zhe does not call back his words,
but awill arise against the house of the evildoers
and against the helpers of bthose who work iniquity.
3 The Egyptians are man, and not God,
and their horses care flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord stretches out his hand,
the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall,
and they will all perish together.
4 For thus the Lord said to me,
d“As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey,
and when a band of shepherds is called out against him
he is not terrified by their shouting
or daunted at their noise,
eso the Lord of hosts will come down
to fight2 on Mount Zion and on its hill.
5 fLike birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts
will protect Jerusalem;
he will protect and deliver it;
he will spare and rescue it.”
6 gTurn to him from whom people3 have hdeeply revolted, O children of Israel. 7 For in that day ieveryone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.
8 j“And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man;
and a sword, not of man, shall devour him;
and he shall flee from the sword,
and his young men shall be kput to forced labor.
9 lHis rock shall pass away in terror,
and his officers desert the standard in panic,”
declares the Lord, whose mfire is in Zion,
and whose nfurnace is in Jerusalem.
