⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness!
How often they grieved him in the wasteland!
⁴¹ They repeatedly put God to the test.
They provoked ^[1] the Holy One of Israel.

⁴² They did not remember the power of his hand—
the day when he redeemed them from the foe,
⁴³ when he displayed his signs in Egypt
and his wonders in the region of Zoan,
⁴⁴ when he turned their rivers to blood,
so they could not drink from their streams.
⁴⁵ He sent against them a swarm of flies that bit them.
Then he sent frogs that destroyed them.
⁴⁶ Then he gave their crops to the grasshopper.
He gave what they worked for to the locust.
⁴⁷ He killed their grapevines with hail,
and their sycamore fig trees with sleet.
⁴⁸ Then he turned over their cattle to hail,
and their livestock to lightning bolts.
⁴⁹ He sent against them his burning anger,
his wrath and indignation and distress
    by sending destroying angels. ^[2]
50 He prepared a path for his anger.
He did not spare their lives from death,
but he delivered their lives to the plague.
⁵¹ Then he struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruit of their virility in the tents of Ham.
⁵² But he led his people out like sheep.
He led them like a flock through the wilderness.
⁵³ Then he guided them safely, so they were not afraid,
but the sea covered their enemies.

⁵⁴ Then he brought them to the border of his holy land,
to this mountain which his right hand had taken.
⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them.
He marked the boundaries of their inheritance,
and he settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶ But they tested him.
They rebelled against God Most High,
and they did not keep his testimonies.
⁵⁷ Yes, they turned aside and were treacherous like their fathers.
They were as undependable as a crooked bow.
⁵⁸ Then they angered him with their high places,
and they made him jealous with their idols.

⁵⁹ God heard, and he showed his anger.
He completely rejected Israel.
⁶⁰ So he abandoned his dwelling in Shiloh,
the tent where he dwelled among people.
⁶¹ So he sent the symbol of his strength ^[3] away into captivity.
He gave his splendor into the hand of the foe.
⁶² He also handed over his people to the sword,
and he showed his anger against his possession.
⁶³ Fire consumed their best young men,
so their virgins were not praised in wedding songs.
⁶⁴ Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows did not weep.

⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke like someone who has been sleeping,
like a warrior overcome by wine.
⁶⁶ Then he drove back his foes.
He gave them everlasting shame.
⁶⁷ Then he rejected the tent of Joseph,
and he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
⁶⁸ But he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loved.
⁶⁹ Then he built up his sanctuary like the heights,
like the world that he established for all time.
⁷⁰ Then he chose David his servant
and took him from the sheep pens.
⁷¹ He brought him from following the mother sheep
    to shepherd his people Jacob
    and his possession Israel.
⁷² So he shepherded them with a sincere heart,
and with skillful hands he led them.