39He remembered that they were but flesh,—A breath, that passeth and cometh not back.
40How often did they provoke him in the wilderness! How often did they anger him in the desert!
41Again and again they tempted God, And offended the Holy One of Israel.
42They remembered not his hand, Nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy;
43What signs he had wrought in Egypt, And what wonders in the fields of Zoan.
44He turned their rivers into blood, So that they could not drink of their streams.
45He sent amongst them flies, which devoured them, And frogs, which destroyed them.
46He gave also their fruits to the caterpillar, And their labor to the locust.
47He destroyed their vines with hail, And their sycamore-trees with frost.
48He also gave up their cattle to hail, And their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
49He sent against them the fierceness of his anger, Wrath, indignation, and woe,—A host of angels of evil.
50He made a way for his anger, He spared them not from death, But gave up their lives to the pestilence.
51He smote all the firstborn in Egypt; The first-fruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52But he led forth his own people like sheep, And guided them like a flock in the wilderness.
53He led them on safely, so that they feared not, While the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54He brought them to his own sacred border, Even to this mountain which his right hand had gained.
55He cast out the nations before them, And divided their land by a measuring-line, as an inheritance, And caused the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
56Yet they tempted and provoked God, the Most High, And kept not his statutes;
57Like their fathers they were faithless, and turned back; They turned aside, like a deceitful bow.
58They provoked his anger by their high places, And stirred up his jealousy by their graven images.
59God saw this, and was wroth, And greatly abhorred Israel;
60So that he forsook the habitation at Shiloh, The tabernacle where he dwelt among men,
61And delivered his strength into captivity, And his glory into the hand of the enemy.
62His own people he gave up to the sword, And was wroth with his own inheritance.
63Fire consumed their young men, And their maidens did not bewail them.
64Their priests fell by the sword, And their widows made no lamentation.
65But at length the Lord awaked as from sleep, As a hero who had been overpowered by wine;
66He smote his enemies, and drove them back, And covered them with everlasting disgrace.
67Yet he rejected the tents of Joseph, And chose not the tribe of Ephraim;
68But chose the tribe of Judah, The Mount Zion which he loved;
69Where he built, like the heavens, his sanctuary; Like the earth, which he hath established for ever.
70And he chose David, his servant, And took him from the sheepfolds;