I will open my mouth in parables
(Matthew 13:34-35)
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Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
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I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old,
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which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
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We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done.
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For he established a covenant in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;
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that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children,
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that they might set their hope in God, and not forget God’s deeds, but keep his commandments,
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and might not be as their fathers— a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
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The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
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They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law.
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They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them.
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He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
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He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap.
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In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire.
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He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.
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He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
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Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
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They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire.
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Yes, they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
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Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide meat for his people?”
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Therefore the LORD heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel,
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because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation.
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Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven.
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He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky.
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Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food to the full.
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He caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By his power he guided the south wind.
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He also rained meat on them as the dust, winged birds as the sand of the seas.
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He let them fall in the middle of their camp, around their habitations.
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So they ate, and were well filled. He gave them their own desire.
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They didn’t turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths,
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when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of their strongest, and struck down the young men of Israel.
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For all this they still sinned, and didn’t believe in his wondrous works.
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Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
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When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly.
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They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer.
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But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue.
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For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant.
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But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn’t stir up all his wrath.
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He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again.
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How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!
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They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
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They didn’t remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;
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how he set his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan,
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he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink.
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He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.
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He also gave their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.
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He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.
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He also gave over their livestock to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
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He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil.
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He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,
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and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.
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But he led out his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
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He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
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He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken.
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He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
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Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies,
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but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were twisted like a deceitful bow.
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For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
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When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel,
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so that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men,
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and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary’s hand.
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He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance.
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Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song.
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Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn’t weep.
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Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.
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He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach.
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Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim,
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But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved.
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He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever.
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He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;
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from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.
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So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.