Study Desk

For their heart was not steadfast toward Him, Nor were they faithful in His covenant.

But He, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them; And often He restrained His anger And did not arouse all His wrath.

They did not remember His power, The day when He redeemed them from the adversary,

When He performed His signs in Egypt And His marvels in the field of Zoan,

He sent upon them His burning anger, Fury and indignation and trouble, A band of destroying angels.

He leveled a path for His anger; He did not spare their soul from death, But gave over their life to the plague,

But He led forth His own people like sheep And guided them in the wilderness like a flock;

So He brought them to His holy land, To this hill country which His right hand had gained.

Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God And did not keep His testimonies,

For they provoked Him with their high places And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.

And gave up His strength to captivity And His glory into the hand of the adversary.

He also delivered His people to the sword, And was filled with wrath at His inheritance.

Fire devoured His young men, And His virgins had no wedding songs.

His priests fell by the sword, And His widows could not weep.

He drove His adversaries backward; He put on them an everlasting reproach.

And He built His sanctuary like the heights, Like the earth which He has founded forever.

He also chose David His servant And took him from the sheepfolds;

From the care of the ewes with suckling lambs He brought him To shepherd Jacob His people, And Israel His inheritance.

So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, And guided them with his skillful hands.

For they have devoured Jacob And laid waste his habitation.