Hear My Teaching, My People

(Matthew 13:34-35)

1{77:1}Understanding for Asaph. Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2{77:2}I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning.

3{77:3}How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

4{77:4}They have not been hidden from their children, in another generation. Declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders which he hath done.

5{77:5}And he set up a testimony in Jacob: and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children:

6{77:6}That another generation might know them. The children that should be born and should rise up, and declare them to their children.

7{77:7}That they may put their hope in God and may not forget the works of God: and may seek his commandments.

8{77:8}That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart aright: and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9{77:9}The sons of Ephraim who bend and shoot with the bow: they have turned back in the day of battle.

10{77:10}They kept not the covenant of God: and in his law they would not walk.

11{77:11}And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them.

12{77:12}Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis.

13{77:13}He divided the sea and brought them through: and he made the waters to stand as in a vessel.

14{77:14}And he conducted them with a cloud by day: and all the night with a light of fire.

15{77:15}He struck the rock in the wilderness: and gave them to drink, as out of the great deep.

16{77:16}He brought forth water out of the rock: and made streams run down as rivers.

17{77:17}And they added yet more sin against him: they provoked the most High to wrath in the place without water.

18{77:18}And they tempted God in their hearts, by asking meat for their desires.

19{77:19}And they spoke ill of God: they said: Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?

20{77:20}Because he struck the rock, and the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he also give bread, or provide a table for his people?

21{77:21}Therefore the Lord heard, and was angry: and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and wrath came up against Israel.

22{77:22}Because they believed not in God: and trusted not in his salvation.

23{77:23}And he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of heaven.

24{77:24}And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the bread of heaven.

25{77:25}Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance.

26{77:26}He removed the south wind from heaven: and by his power brought in the southwest wind.

27{77:27}And he rained upon them flesh as dust: and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea.

28{77:28}And they fell in the midst of their camp, round about their pavilions.

29{77:29}So they did eat, and were filled exceedingly, and he gave them their desire:

30{77:30}they were not defrauded of that which they craved. As yet their meat was in their mouth:

31{77:31}And the wrath of God came upon them. And he slew the fat ones amongst them, and brought down the chosen men of Israel.

32{77:32}In all these things they sinned still: and they behaved not for his wondrous works.

33{77:33}And their days were consumed in vanity, and their years in haste.

34{77:34}When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned, and came to him early in the morning.

35{77:35}And they remembered that God was their helper: and the most high God their redeemer.

36{77:36}And they loved him with their mouth: and with their tongue they lied unto him:

37{77:37}But their heart was not right with him: nor were they counted faithful in his covenant.

38{77:38}But he is merciful, and will forgive their sins: and will not destroy them. And many a time did he turn away his anger: and did not kindle all his wrath.

39{77:39}And he remembered that they are flesh: a wind that goeth and returneth not.

40{77:40}How often did they provoke him in the desert: and move him to wrath in the place without water?

41{77:41}And they turned back and tempted God: and grieved the holy one of Israel.

42{77:42}They remembered not his hand, in the day that he redeemed them from the hand of him that afflicted them:

43{77:43}How he wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Tanis.

44{77:44}And he turned their rivers into blood, and their showers that they might not drink.

45{77:45}He sent amongst them divers sorts of flies, which devoured them: and frogs which destroyed them.

46{77:46}And he gave up their fruits to the blast, and their labours to the locust.

47{77:47}And he destroyed their vineyards with hail, and their mulberry trees with hoarfrost.

48{77:48}And he gave up their cattle to the hail, and their stock to the fire.

49{77:49}And he sent upon them the wrath of his indignation: indignation and wrath and trouble, which he sent by evil angels.

50{77:50}He made a way for a path to his anger: he spared not their souls from death, and their cattle he shut up in death.

51{77:51}And he killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt: the firstfruits of all their labour in the tabernacles of Cham.

52{77:52}And he took away his own people as sheep: and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

53{77:53}And he brought them out in hope and they feared not: and the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

54{77:54}And he brought them into the mountain of his sanctuary: the mountain which his right hand had purchased. And he cast out the Gentiles before them: and by lot divided to them their land by a line of distribution.

55{77:55}And he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tabernacles.

56{77:56}Yet they tempted, and provoked the most high God: and they kept not his testimonies.

57{77:57}And they turned away, and kept not the covenant: even like their fathers they were turned aside as a crooked bow.

58{77:58}They provoked him to anger on their hills: and moved him to jealousy with their graven things.

59{77:59}God heard, and despised them, and he reduced Israel exceedingly as it were to nothing.

60{77:60}And he put away the tabernacle of Silo, his tabernacle where he dwelt among men.

61{77:61}And he delivered their strength into captivity: and their beauty into the hands of the enemy.

62{77:62}And he shut up his people under the sword: and he despised his inheritance.

63{77:63}Fire consumed their young men: and their maidens were not lamented.

64{77:64}Their priests fell by the sword: and their widows did not mourn.

65{77:65}And the Lord was awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that hath been surfeited with wine.

66{77:66}And he smote his enemies on the hinder parts: he put them to an everlasting reproach.

67{77:67}And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph: and chose not the tribe of Ephraim:

68{77:68}But he chose the tribe of Juda, mount Sion which he loved.

69{77:69}And he built his sanctuary as of unicorns, in the land which he founded for ever.

70{77:70}And he chose his servant David, and took him from the flocks of sheep: he brought him from following the ewes great with young,

71{77:71}To feed Jacob his servant and Israel his inheritance.

72{77:72}And he fed them in the innocence of his heart: and conducted them by the skilfulness of his hands.