26
He released the east wind in the heavens and guided the south wind by his mighty power.
27
He rained down meat as thick as dust— birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore!
28
He caused the birds to fall within their camp and all around their tents.
29
The people ate their fill. He gave them what they craved.
30
But before they satisfied their craving, while the meat was yet in their mouths,
31
the anger of God rose against them, and he killed their strongest men. He struck down the finest of Israel’s young men.
32
But in spite of this, the people kept sinning. Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him.
33
So he ended their lives in failure, their years in terror.
34
When God began killing them, they finally sought him. They repented and took God seriously.
35
Then they remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their redeemer.
36
But all they gave him was lip service; they lied to him with their tongues.
37
Their hearts were not loyal to him. They did not keep his covenant.
38
Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and did not destroy them all. Many times he held back his anger and did not unleash his fury!
39
For he remembered that they were merely mortal, gone like a breath of wind that never returns.
40
Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland.
41
Again and again they tested God’s patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42
They did not remember his power and how he rescued them from their enemies.
43
They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plain of Zoan.
44
For he turned their rivers into blood, so no one could drink from the streams.
45
He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them and hordes of frogs to ruin them.
46
He gave their crops to caterpillars; their harvest was consumed by locusts.
47
He destroyed their grapevines with hail and shattered their sycamore-figs with sleet.
48
He abandoned their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.
49
He loosed on them his fierce anger— all his fury, rage, and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels.
50
He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives but ravaged them with the plague.
51
He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt.
52
But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness.
53
He kept them safe so they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies.
54
He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this land of hills he had won for them.
55
He drove out the nations before them; he gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes.
56
But they kept testing and rebelling against God Most High. They did not obey his laws.
57
They turned back and were as faithless as their parents. They were as undependable as a crooked bow.
58
They angered God by building shrines to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols.
59
When God heard them, he was very angry, and he completely rejected Israel.
60
Then he abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh, the Tabernacle where he had lived among the people.
61
He allowed the Ark of his might to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands.
62
He gave his people over to be butchered by the sword, because he was so angry with his own people—his special possession.
63
Their young men were killed by fire; their young women died before singing their wedding songs.
64
Their priests were slaughtered, and their widows could not mourn their deaths.
65
Then the Lord rose up as though waking from sleep, like a warrior aroused from a drunken stupor.
66
He routed his enemies and sent them to eternal shame.
67
But he rejected Joseph’s descendants; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68
He chose instead the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which he loved.
69
There he built his sanctuary as high as the heavens, as solid and enduring as the earth.
70
He chose his servant David, calling him from the sheep pens.
71
He took David from tending the ewes and lambs and made him the shepherd of Jacob’s descendants— God’s own people, Israel.
72
He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skillful hands.