I will open my mouth in parables
(Matthew 13:34-35)
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Understanding for Asaph. Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
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I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning.
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How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
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They have not been hidden from their children, in another generation. Declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders which he hath done.
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And he set up a testimony in Jacob: and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children:
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That another generation might know them. The children that should be born and should rise up, and declare them to their children.
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That they may put their hope in God and may not forget the works of God: and may seek his commandments.
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That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart aright: and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
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The sons of Ephraim who bend and shoot with the bow: they have turned back in the day of battle.
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They kept not the covenant of God: and in his law they would not walk.
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And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them.
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Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis.
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He divided the sea and brought them through: and he made the waters to stand as in a vessel.
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And he conducted them with a cloud by day: and all the night with a light of fire.
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He struck the rock in the wilderness: and gave them to drink, as out of the great deep.
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He brought forth water out of the rock: and made streams run down as rivers.
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And they added yet more sin against him: they provoked the most High to wrath in the place without water.
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And they tempted God in their hearts, by asking meat for their desires.
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And they spoke ill of God: they said: Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
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Because he struck the rock, and the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he also give bread, or provide a table for his people?
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Therefore the Lord heard, and was angry: and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and wrath came up against Israel.
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Because they believed not in God: and trusted not in his salvation.
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And he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of heaven.
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And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the bread of heaven.
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Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance.
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He removed the south wind from heaven: and by his power brought in the southwest wind.
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And he rained upon them flesh as dust: and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea.
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And they fell in the midst of their camp, round about their pavilions.
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So they did eat, and were filled exceedingly, and he gave them their desire:
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They were not defrauded of that which they craved. As yet their meat was in their mouth:
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And the wrath of God came upon them. And he slew the fat ones amongst them, and brought down the chosen men of Israel.
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In all these things they sinned still: and they believed not for his wondrous works.
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And their days were consumed in vanity, and their years in haste.
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When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned, and came to him early in the morning.
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And they remembered that God was their helper: and the most high God their redeemer.
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And they loved him with their mouth: and with their tongue they lied unto him:
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But their heart was not right with him: nor were they counted faithful in his covenant.
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But he is merciful, and will forgive their sins: and will not destroy them. And many a time did he turn away his anger: and did not kindle all his wrath.
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And he remembered that they are flesh: a wind that goeth and returneth not.
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How often did they provoke him in the desert: and move him to wrath in the place without water?
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And they turned back and tempted God: and grieved the holy one of Israel.
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They remembered not his hand, in the day that he redeemed them from the hand of him that afflicted them:
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How he wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Tanis.
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And he turned their rivers into blood, and their showers that they might, not drink.
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He sent amongst them divers sores of flies, which devoured them: and frogs which destroyed them.
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And he gave up their fruits to the blast, and their labours to the locust.
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And he destroyed their vineyards with hail, and their mulberry trees with hoarfrost.
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And he gave up their cattle to the hail, and their stock to the fire.
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And he sent upon them the wrath of his indignation: indignation and wrath and trouble, which he sent by evil angels.
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He made a way for a path to his anger: he spared not their souls from death, and their cattle he shut up in death.
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And he killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt: the firstfruits of all their labour in the tabernacles of Cham.
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And he took away his own people as sheep: and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
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And he brought them out in hope, and they feared not: band the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
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And he brought them into the mountain of his sanctuary: the mountain which his right hand had purchased. And he cast out the Gentiles before them: and by lot divided to them their land by a line of distribution.
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And he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tabernacles.
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Yet they tempted, and provoked the most high God: and they kept not his testimonies.
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And they turned away, and kept not the covenant: even like their fathers they were turned aside as a crooked bow.
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They provoked him to anger on their hills: and moved him to jealousy with their graven things.
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God heard, and despised them, and he reduced Israel exceedingly as it were to nothing.
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And he put away the tabernacle of Silo, his tabernacle where he dwelt among men.
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And he delivered their strength into captivity: and their beauty into the hands of the enemy.
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And he shut up his people under the sword: and he despised his inheritance.
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Fire consumed their young men: and their maidens were not lamented.
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Their priests fell by the sword: and their widows did not mourn.
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And the Lord was awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that hath been surfeited with wine.
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And he smote his enemies on the hinder parts: he put them to an everlasting reproach.
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And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph: and chose not the tribe of Ephraim:
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But he chose the tribe of Juda, mount Sion which he loved.
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And he built his sanctuary as of unicorns, in the land which he founded for ever.
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And he chose his servant David, and took him from the hocks of sheep: he brought him from following the ewes great with young,
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To feed Jacob his servant, and Israel his inheritance.
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And he fed them in the innocence of his heart: and conducted them by the skillfulness of his hands.