7. Remember the days of long ago;think about the generations past.Ask your father, and he will inform you.Inquire of your elders, and they will tell you.
8. When the Most High assigned lands to the nations,when he divided up the human race,he established the boundaries of the peoplesaccording to the number in his heavenly court.
9. “For the people of Israel belong to the lord;Jacob is his special possession.
10. He found them in a desert land,in an empty, howling wasteland.He surrounded them and watched over them;he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.
11. Like an eagle that rouses her chicksand hovers over her young,so he spread his wings to take them upand carried them safely on his pinions.
12. The lord alone guided them;they followed no foreign gods.
13. He let them ride over the highlandsand feast on the crops of the fields.He nourished them with honey from the rockand olive oil from the stony ground.
14. He fed them yogurt from the herdand milk from the flock,together with the fat of lambs.He gave them choice rams from Bashan, and goats,together with the choicest wheat.You drank the finest wine,made from the juice of grapes.
15. “But Israel soon became fat and unruly;the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed!Then they abandoned the God who had made them;they made light of the Rock of their salvation.
16. They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods;they provoked his fury with detestable deeds.
17. They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God,to gods they had not known before,to new gods only recently arrived,to gods their ancestors had never feared.
18. You neglected the Rock who had fathered you;you forgot the God who had given you birth.
19. “The lord saw this and drew back,provoked to anger by his own sons and daughters.