“When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
When He separated the sons of man,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the sons of Israel.
“For the LORD’S portion and chosen share is His people;
Jacob (Israel) is the allotment of His inheritance.
“He found him in a desert land,
In the howling wasteland of a wilderness;
He kept circling him, He took care of him,
He protected him as the apple of His eye.
“As an eagle that protects its nest,
That flutters over its young,
He spread out His wings and took them,
He carried them on His pinions. [Luke 13:34]
“So the LORD alone led him;
There was no foreign god with him.
“He made him (Israel) ride on the high places of the earth,
And he ate the produce of the field;
And He made him suck honey from the rock,
And [olive] oil from the flinty rock,
Butter and curds of cows, and milk of the flock,
With fat of lambs,
And rams, the breed of Bashan, and goats,
With the finest of the wheat;
And you drank wine, the blood of grapes.
¶“But Jeshurun (Israel) became fat and kicked [at God].
You became fat, thick, sleek, and obstinate!
Then he abandoned God who had made him,
And scorned the Rock of his salvation.
“They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods [by denying Him the honor and loyalty that is rightfully and uniquely His];
And with repulsive acts they provoked Him to anger.
“They sacrificed to demons, not to God,
To gods whom they have not known,
New gods who came lately,
Whom your fathers never feared.
“You were unmindful of the Rock who bore you,
And you forgot the God who gave you birth.
¶“The LORD saw it, and rejected them,
Out of indignation with His sons and His daughters.
“Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them,
I will see what their end shall be;
For they are a perverse generation,
Sons in whom there is no faithfulness.
‘They have made Me jealous with what is not God;
They have provoked Me to anger with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
‘For a fire is kindled by My anger,
And it burns to the depths of Sheol (the place of the dead, the nether world),
It devours the earth with its yield,
And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
¶‘I will heap misfortunes on them;
I will use My arrows on them.
‘They will be wasted by hunger, and consumed by plague
And a bitter destruction;
And I will send the teeth of beasts against them,
With the venom of crawling things of the dust.
‘Outside the sword will bereave,
And inside [the chambers] terror—
For both young man and virgin,
For the nursing child and the man of gray hair.
‘I would have said, “I will cut them to pieces [scattering them far away],
I will remove the memory of them from men,”
Had I not feared the provocation of the enemy,
That their adversaries would misjudge,
That they would say, “Our [own] hand has prevailed,
And the LORD has not done all this.” ’
¶“For they are a nation devoid of counsel,
And there is no understanding in them.
“O that they were wise, that they understood this,
That they could discern their future and ultimate fate!
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