Revelation Public Library

Psalm 81 - God’s Appeal to Stubborn Israel

To the leader: according to The Gittith.

Of Asaph.

Sing aloud to God our strength;
 
shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
 
Raise a song, sound the tambourine,
 
the sweet lyre with the harp.
 
Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
 
at the full moon, on our festal day.
 
For it is a statute for Israel,
 
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
 
He made it a decree in Joseph,
 
when he went out over[a] the land of Egypt.

I hear a voice I had not known:


 
“I relieved your[b] shoulder of the burden;
 
your[c] hands were freed from the basket.
 
In distress you called, and I rescued you;
 
I answered you in the secret place of thunder;
 
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.Selah
 
Hear, O my people, while I admonish you;
 
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
 
There shall be no strange god among you;
 
you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
 
10 I am the Lord your God,
 
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
 
Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

11 “But my people did not listen to my voice;
 
Israel would not submit to me.
 
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
 
to follow their own counsels.
 
13 O that my people would listen to me,
 
that Israel would walk in my ways!
 
14 Then I would quickly subdue their enemies,
 
and turn my hand against their foes.
 
15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him,
 
and their doom would last forever.
 
16 I would feed you[d] with the finest of the wheat,
 
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Footnotes
 

a. Psalm 81:5 Or against

b. Psalm 81:6 Heb his

c. Psalm 81:6 Heb his

d. Psalm 81:16 Cn Compare verse 16b: Heb he would feed him

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

    0
    0