1. The understanding of Asaph. O my people, attend to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2. I will open my mouth in parables. I will speak about concepts that are from the beginning.
3. We have heard and known such great things, as our fathers have described to us.
4. These things have not been hidden from their sons in any generation: declaring the praises of the Lord, and his virtues, and the wonders that he has done.
5. And he has received testimony with Jacob, and he has set a law within Israel. Such great things, he has commanded our fathers, so as to make these things known to their sons,
6. so that another generation might know them, and so that the sons, who will be born and who will grow up, shall describe them to their sons.
7. So then, may they put their hope in God, and may they not forget the works of God, and may they seek his commandments.
8. May they not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation: a generation that does not straighten their heart and whose spirit is not trustworthy with God.
9. The sons of Ephraim, who bend and shoot the bow, have been turned back in the day of battle.
10. They have not kept the covenant of God. And they were not willing to walk in his law.
11. And they have been forgetful of his benefits, and of his miracle, which he revealed to them.
12. He performed miracles in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis.
13. He broke the sea and he led them through. And he stationed the waters, as if in a vessel.
14. And he led them with a cloud by day, and with illumination by fire throughout the night.
15. He broke through the rock in the wasteland, and he gave them to drink, as if from the great abyss.
16. He brought forth water from the rock, and he conducted the waters, as if they were rivers.
17. And yet, they continued to sin against him. In a waterless place, they provoked the Most High with resentment.