1  Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;

incline your ears to the words of my mouth!

2  ^pI will open my mouth in a ^qparable;

I will utter dark sayings from of old,

3  things that we have heard and known,

that ^rour fathers have told us.

4  ^sWe will not hide them from their children,

but ^ttell to the coming generation

the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,

and the wonders that he has done.

5  He established a ^utestimony in Jacob

^vand appointed a law in Israel,

which he commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

6  that the next generation might know them,

the children ^wyet unborn,

and arise and ^xtell them to their children,

7  so that they should set their hope in God

and not ^yforget the works of God,

but keep his commandments;

8  and that they should not be ^zlike their fathers,

a ^astubborn and ^brebellious generation,

a generation whose heart was not steadfast,

whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9  The Ephraimites, armed with² the bow,

turned back on the day of battle.

10  They did not ^ckeep God’s covenant,

but refused to walk according to his law.

11  They forgot his works

and the wonders that he had shown them.

32  ^sIn spite of all this, they still sinned;

^tdespite his wonders, they did not believe.

33  So he made their days vanish like¹ a breath,²

and their years in terror.

34  When he killed them, they sought him;

they repented and sought God earnestly.

35  They remembered that God was their rock,

the Most High God their ^uredeemer.

36  But they flattered him with their mouths;

they lied to him with their tongues.

37  Their heart was not steadfast toward him;

they were not faithful to his covenant.

38  Yet he, being compassionate,

^vatoned for their iniquity

and did not destroy them;

he restrained his anger often

and did not stir up all his wrath.

39  He ^wremembered that they were but ^xflesh,

a ^ywind that passes and comes not again.

40  How often they ^zrebelled against him in the wilderness

and grieved him in the desert!

41  They tested God again and again

and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

42  They did not remember his power³

or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,