1. Heaven! Pay attention and I will speak;Earth! Listen to the words of my mouth.
2. My teaching will fall like raindrops;my speech will settle like dew—like gentle rains on grass,like spring showers on all that is green—
3. because I proclaim the Lord’s name:Give praise to our God!
4. The rock: his acts are perfection!No doubt about it: all his ways are right!He’s the faithful God, never deceiving;altogether righteous and true is he.
5. But children who weren’t his ownsinned against him with their defects;they are a twisted and perverse generation.
6. Is this how you thank the Lord, you stupid, senseless people?Isn’t he your father, your creator?Didn’t he make you and establish you?
7. Remember the days long past;consider the years long gone.Ask your father, he will tell you about it;ask your elders, they will give you the details:
8. When God Most High divided up the nations—when he divided up humankind—he decided the people’s boundariesbased on the number of the gods.
9. Surely the Lord’s property was his people;Jacob was his part of the inheritance.
10. God found Israel in a wild land—in a howling desert wasteland—he protected him, cared for him,watched over him with his very own eye.
11. Like an eagle protecting its nest,hovering over its young,God spread out his wings, took hold of Israel,carried him on his back.
12. The Lord alone led Israel;no foreign god assisted.
13. God made Israel glide over the highlands;he fed him with food from the field,nursed him with honey from a boulder,with oil from a hard rock:
14. curds from the herd, milk from the flock,along with the best of lambs,rams from Bashan, he-goats too,along with the finest wheat—and for drink, wine from the juiciest grapes!
15. Jacob ate until he was stuffed;Jeshurun got fat, then rebellious.It was you who got fat, thick, stubborn!Jeshurun gave up on the God who made him,thought the rock of his salvation was worthless.
16. They made God jealous with strange gods,aggravated him with detestable things.
17. They sacrificed to demons, not to God,to deities of which they had no knowledge—new gods only recently on the scene,ones about which your ancestors had never heard.
18. You deserted the rock that sired you;you forgot the God who gave birth to you!