I Will Open My Mouth in Parables
(Matthew 13:34–35)

1A Maskil† of Asaph.

1 Give ear, O my people, to my instruction;

stretch out your⁺ ear to the words of my mouth.

2I will open my mouth in a parable;

I will pour forth things hidden† from of old,†

3which we have heard and known,

and our fathers have recounted to us.

4We will not hide them from their children,

recounting to a following generation:

The praises of YHWH, and His strength,

and His wonders that He has done.

5For He established a testimony in Jacob,

and a law He has appointed in Israel,

which He commanded to our fathers,

to make them known to their sons,

6so that a following generation would know them—

the sons to be born—

to arise and recount to their sons,

7that they should put their hope in God,

and not forget the works of God,

and keep His commandments.

8And they should not be like their fathers—

a generation being stubborn and rebellious,

a generation that did not set firm its heart,

and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9The sons of Ephraim, handling and shooting the bow,

turned back on the day of battle.

10They did not keep the covenant of God,

and in His law they refused to walk,

11and they forgot His deeds,

and His wonders that He had shown them.

12In the eyes of their fathers He did a wonder,

in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

13He divided the sea and let them cross over,

and the waters He made stand up like a heap.

14And He led them with the cloud by day,

and all the night with a light of fire.

15He split open the rocks in the wilderness,

and gave to drink, like the depths in abundance.

16And He brought forth streams from the rock,

and made waters come down like the rivers.

17And they added still to sin against Him

by rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

18And they tested God in their heart,

by requesting food of their soul.

19And they spoke against God, saying,

“Is God able to arrange a table in the wilderness?

20Behold, He struck the rock, and the waters gushed out,

and torrents overflowed;

and also is He able to give bread

or provide meat for His people?”

21Therefore YHWH heard

and boiled over,

and a fire was kindled against Jacob,

and anger came up against Israel,

22because they did not have faith in God,

and they did not trust in His salvation.

23And He commanded the clouds above,

and the doors of the heavens He opened.

24And He rained down on them manna to eat—

and he gave to them the grain of the heavens.†

25The bread of the mighty ones a man ate;

food He sent to them in abundance.

26An east wind He caused to blow in the heavens,

and He guided by His power the south wind.

27And He rained upon them flesh like the dust,

and winged bird like the sand of the seas,

28and He felled them in the midst of their camp,

all around their dwellings.

29So they ate and were satisfied greatly,

and their desires He brought to them.

30They were not estranged from their desire,

and still their food was in their mouth.

31And the anger of God came upon them,

and He killed the fattest of them

and subdued the young men of Israel.

32In all this, still they sinned,

and they did not have faith in His wonders.

33And He finished off their days in futility,†

and their years in terror.

34When He slew them, they would seek Him,

and they turned back and sought after God.

35And they remembered that God was their rock,

and El-Elyon† their Redeemer.

36And they deceived Him with their mouth,

and with their tongue they lied to Him.

37And their heart was not established with Him,

and they were not faithful to His covenant.

38And He, the compassionate One,

forgave the iniquity and did not destroy them;

and He often restrained His anger,

and He did not stir up all His wrath.

39And He remembered that they were flesh,

a breath going by that does not return.

40How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness

and grieved Him in the desert!

41And they turned back and tested God,

and they pained the Holy One of Israel.

42They have not remembered His hand,†

the day when He ransomed them from the adversary,

43when He worked His signs in Egypt,

and His wonders in the field of Zoan.

44And He turned their rivers into blood,

and from their streams they could not drink.

45He sent among them the swarm, and it consumed them,

and the frog, and it destroyed them.

46And He gave to the ravager their produce,

and their labor to the locust.

47He destroyed with hail their vines,

and their sycamore trees with frost.†

48And He gave up to the hail their cattle,

and their flocks to the firebolts.

49He sent against them the burning of His anger—

fury, and rage, and distress,

a discharge of messengers of evils.

50He made level a path for His anger;

He did not spare their soul from death,

and He gave over their life to the pestilence.

51He even struck all the firstborn in Egypt,

the first of the vigour in the tents of Ham.

52And His people He made go forth like sheep,

and He guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

53And He led them to safety, and they did not dread,

and the sea covered their enemies.

54And He brought them to the border of His holiness,

this mountain His right hand had acquired.

55And He drove out the nations before their face,

and caused them to fall in the line of inheritance,

and the tribes of Israel He settled in their tents.

56And they tested and provoked El-Elyon,†

and His testimonies they did not keep.

57And they turned back and were treacherous like their fathers;

they were turned like a bow of deceit.

58And they provoked Him to anger with their high places,

and with their carved images they made Him jealous.

59God heard and boiled over,

and exceedingly He rejected Israel;

60and He left behind the dwelling place of Shiloh,

the tent He had pitched among men,

61and He delivered His strength to captivity,

and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

62And He delivered up His people to the sword,

and on His inheritance He boiled over.

63Fire consumed His young men,

and His virgins have not been praised.

64His priests fell by the sword,

and the widows could not weep.

65And the Lord awoke as a sleeper,

as a mighty one overcome by wine.

66And He beat his adversaries back;

a reproach forever He gave to them.

67And He rejected the tent of Joseph,

and the tribe of Ephraim He would not choose.

68And He chose the tribe of Judah,

Mount Zion, which He loved.

69And He built His sanctuary like the heights;

like the earth He founded it forever.

70And He chose David His servant,

and He took him from the folds of his flock;

71He brought him from tending the ewes

to be shepherd of Jacob His people,

and of Israel His inheritance.

72And he tended them with the integrity of his heart,

and by the skillfulness of his hands he guided them.