³² In spite of all this they still sinned
And did not believe in His wonderful works.
³³ So He brought their days to an end in ^[a]futility
And their years in sudden terror.

³⁴ When He killed them, then they sought Him,
And returned and searched diligently for God;
³⁵ And they remembered that God was their rock,
And the Most High God their Redeemer.
³⁶ But they deceived Him with their mouth
And lied to Him with their tongue.
³⁷ For their heart was not steadfast toward Him,
Nor were they faithful in His covenant.
³⁸ But He, being compassionate, ^[b]forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them;
And often He ^[c]restrained His anger
And did not arouse all His wrath.
³⁹ Thus He remembered that they were but flesh,
A ^[d]wind that passes and does not return.

⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness
And grieved Him in the desert!
⁴¹ Again and again they ^[e]tempted God,
And pained the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They did not remember His ^[f]power,
The day when He redeemed them from the adversary,
⁴³ When He performed His signs in Egypt
And His marvels in the field of Zoan,
⁴⁴ And turned their rivers to blood,
And their streams, they could not drink.
⁴⁵ He sent among them swarms of flies which devoured them,
And frogs which destroyed them.
⁴⁶ He gave also their crops to the grasshopper
And the product of their labor to the locust.
⁴⁷ He ^[g]destroyed their vines with hailstones
And their sycamore trees with frost.
⁴⁸ He gave over their cattle also to the hailstones
And their herds to bolts of lightning.
⁴⁹ He sent upon them His burning anger,
Fury and indignation and trouble,
^[h]A band of destroying angels.
⁵⁰ He leveled a path for His anger;
He did not spare their soul from death,
But gave over their life to the plague,
⁵¹ And smote all the firstborn in Egypt,
The first issue of their virility in the tents of Ham.
⁵² But He led forth His own people like sheep
And guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
⁵³ He led them safely, so that they did not fear;
But the sea engulfed their enemies.

⁵⁴ So He brought them to His holy ^[i]land,
To this ^[j]hill country which His right hand had gained.
⁵⁵ He also drove out the nations before them
And apportioned them for an inheritance by measurement,
And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.
⁵⁶ Yet they ^[k]tempted and rebelled against the Most High God
And did not keep His testimonies,
⁵⁷ But turned back and acted treacherously like their fathers;
They turned aside like a treacherous bow.
⁵⁸ For they provoked Him with their high places
And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.
⁵⁹ When God heard, He ^[l]was filled with wrath
And greatly abhorred Israel;
⁶⁰ So that He abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh,
The tent ^[m]which He had pitched among men,
⁶¹ And gave up His strength to captivity
And His glory into the hand of the adversary.
⁶² He also delivered His people to the sword,
And ^[n]was filled with wrath at His inheritance.
⁶³ Fire devoured ^[o]His young men,
And ^[p]His virgins had no wedding songs.
^64 [q]His priests fell by the sword,
And ^[r]His widows could not weep.

⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep,
Like a warrior ^[s]overcome by wine.
⁶⁶ He ^[t]drove His adversaries backward;
He put on them an everlasting reproach.
⁶⁷ He also rejected the tent of Joseph,
And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
⁶⁸ But chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion which He loved.
⁶⁹ And He built His sanctuary like the heights,
Like the earth which He has founded forever.
⁷⁰ He also chose David His servant
And took him from the sheepfolds;
⁷¹ From ^[u]the care of the ^[v]ewes with suckling lambs He brought him
To shepherd Jacob His people,
And Israel His inheritance.
⁷² So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart,
And guided them with his skillful hands.