For the leader. On the gittith. Of Asaph. Sing aloud to God our strength, shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
Raise a song, sound the timbrel,
sweet lyre and harp.
On the new moon blow the horn,
at the full moon, the day of our festival.
For this is a statute for Israel,
a ruling of the God of Jacob,
a witness he set up in Joseph,
when he marched against Egypt’s land,
where he heard an unknown voice say:
‘I removed from your shoulder the burden,
and freed your hands from the basket.
At your call of distress I delivered you,
from the thundercloud I answered you.
At Meribah’s waters I tested you. Selah
‘Listen, my people, to my warning,
O Israel, if you would but listen!
There must not be a strange god among you,
you must bow to no foreign god.
I am the Lord your God
who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open your mouth, that I fill it.
‘But my people did not listen to my voice,
Israel would have none of me.
So to their own hard hearts I left them,
to follow their own devices.
O that my people would listen,
that Israel would walk in my ways.
Soon would I humble their enemies,
and turn my hand on their foes.
Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him
in everlasting terror.
But you would I feed with the richest wheat,
and with honey from the rock to your heart’s desire.’
