They quickly forgot His works;
They did not wait for His counsel,
But craved intensely in the wilderness,
And tempted God in the desert.
So He gave them their request,
But sent a wasting disease among them.
When they became envious of Moses in the camp,
And of Aaron, the holy one of the LORD,
The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan,
And engulfed the company of Abiram.
And a fire blazed up in their company;
The flame consumed the wicked.
They made a calf in Horeb
And worshiped a molten image.
Thus they exchanged their glory
For the image of an ox that eats grass.
They forgot God their Savior,
Who had done great things in Egypt,
Wonders in the land of Ham
And awesome things by the Red Sea.
Therefore He said that He would destroy them,
Had not Moses His chosen one stood in the breach before Him,
To turn away His wrath from destroying them.
Then they despised the pleasant land;
They did not believe in His word,
But grumbled in their tents;
They did not listen to the voice of the LORD.
Therefore He swore to them
That He would cast them down in the wilderness,
And that He would cast their seed among the nations
And scatter them in the lands.
They joined themselves also to Baal-peor,
And ate sacrifices offered to the dead.
Thus they provoked Him to anger with their deeds,
And the plague broke out among them.
Then Phinehas stood up and interposed,
And so the plague was stayed.
And it was reckoned to him for righteousness,
To all generations forever.
They also provoked Him to wrath at the waters of Meribah,
So that it went hard with Moses on their account;
Because they were rebellious against His Spirit,
He spoke rashly with his lips.
They did not destroy the peoples,
As the LORD commanded them,
But they mingled with the nations
And learned their practices,
And served their idols,
Which became a snare to them.
They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons,
And shed innocent blood,
The blood of their sons and their daughters,
Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
And the land was polluted with the blood.
Thus they became unclean in their practices,
And played the harlot in their deeds.
Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against His people
And He abhorred His inheritance.
Then He gave them into the hand of the nations,
And those who hated them ruled over them.
Their enemies also oppressed them,
And they were subdued under their power.
Many times He would deliver them;
They, however, were rebellious in their counsel,
And so sank down in their iniquity.
Nevertheless He looked upon their distress
When He heard their cry;
And He remembered His covenant for their sake,
And relented according to the greatness of His lovingkindness.
He also made them objects of compassion
In the presence of all their captors.
Save us, O LORD our God,
And gather us from among the nations,
To give thanks to Your holy name
And glory in Your praise.
Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,
From everlasting even to everlasting.
And let all the people say, “Amen.”
Praise the LORD!
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