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1Praise the Lord !
Give thanks to the Lord , for he is good,
and his loyal love endures!
2Who can adequately recount the Lord ’s mighty acts,
or relate all his praiseworthy deeds?
3How blessed are those who promote justice,
and do what is right all the time!
4Remember me, O Lord , when you show favor to your people!
Pay attention to me, when you deliver,
5so I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones,[#tn Heb “good.”]
rejoice along with your nation,
and boast along with the people who belong to you.
6We have sinned like our ancestors;[#tn Heb “with.”; #tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 7).]
we have done wrong, we have done evil.
7Our ancestors in Egypt failed to appreciate your miraculous deeds,
they failed to remember your many acts of loyal love,
and they rebelled at the sea, by the Red Sea.
8Yet he delivered them for the sake of his reputation,[#tn Heb “his name,” which here stands metonymically for God’s reputation.]
that he might reveal his power.
9He shouted at the Red Sea and it dried up;[#tn Or “rebuked.”]
he led them through the deep water as if it were a desert.
10He delivered them from the power of the one who hated them,[#tn Heb “hand.”]
and rescued them from the power of the enemy.
11The water covered their enemies;
not even one of them survived.
12They believed his promises;[#tn Heb “his words.”]
they sang praises to him.
13They quickly forgot what he had done;[#tn Heb “his works.”]
they did not wait for his instructions.
14In the wilderness they had an insatiable craving for meat;[#sn They had an insatiable craving. This is described in Num 11:4-35.; #tn Heb “they craved [with] a craving.”]
they challenged God in the desert.
15He granted their request,
then struck them with a disease.
16In the camp they resented Moses,[#tn Or “envied.”]
and Aaron, the Lord ’s holy priest.
17The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan;
it engulfed the group led by Abiram.
18Fire burned their group;
the flames scorched the wicked.
19They made an image of a calf at Horeb,
and worshiped a metal idol.
20They traded their majestic God[#tn Heb “their glory.” According to an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition, the text originally read “his glory” or “my glory.” In Jer 2:11 the Lord states that his people (Israel) exchanged “their glory” (a reference to the Lord) for worthless idols.]
for the image of an ox that eats grass.
21They rejected the God who delivered them,[#tn Heb “forgot.”]
the one who performed great deeds in Egypt,
22amazing feats in the land of Ham,
mighty acts by the Red Sea.
23He threatened to destroy them,[#tn Heb “and he said.”]
but Moses, his chosen one, interceded with him
and turned back his destructive anger.
24They rejected the fruitful land;[#tn Heb “a land of delight” (see also Jer 3:19; Zech 7:14).]
they did not believe his promise.
25They grumbled in their tents;[#sn They grumbled in their tents. See Deut 1:27.]
they did not obey the Lord .
26So he made a solemn vow[#tn Heb “and he lifted his hand to [or “concerning”] them.” The idiom “to lift a hand” here refers to swearing an oath. One would sometimes solemnly lift one’s hand when making such a vow (see Ezek 20:5-6, 15).]
that he would make them die in the desert,
27make their descendants die among the nations,[#tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”; #tn Heb “and to cause their offspring to fall.” Some emend the verb to “scatter” to form tighter parallelism with the following line (cf. NRSV “disperse”).]
and scatter them among foreign lands.
28They worshiped Baal of Peor,[#tn Heb “joined themselves to.”sn They worshiped Baal of Peor. See Num 25:3, 5. Baal of Peor was a local manifestation of the Canaanite deity Baal located at Peor.]
and ate sacrifices offered to the dead.
29They made the Lord angry by their actions,[#tn Heb “They made angry [him].” The pronominal suffix is omitted here, but does appear in a few medieval Hebrew mss. Perhaps it was accidentally left off, an original וַיַּכְעִיסוּהוּ (vayyakh’isuhu) being misread as וַיַּכְעִיסוּ (vayyakh’isu). In the translation the referent of the pronominal suffix (the Lord) has been specified for clarity to avoid confusion with Baal of Peor (mentioned in the previous verse).]
and a plague broke out among them.
30Phinehas took a stand and intervened,[#sn The intervention of Phinehas is recounted in Num 25:7-8.]
and the plague subsided.
31This brought him a reward,
an eternal gift.
32They made him angry by the waters of Meribah,
and Moses suffered because of them,
33for they aroused his temper,[#tn The Hebrew text vocalizes the form as הִמְרוּ (himru), a Hiphil from מָרָה (marah, “to behave rebelliously”), but the verb fits better with the object (“his spirit”) if it is revocalized as הֵמֵרוּ (hemeru), a Hiphil from מָרַר (marar, “to be bitter”). The Israelites “embittered” Moses’ “spirit” in the sense that they aroused his temper with their complaints.; #tn Heb “his spirit.”]
and he spoke rashly.
34They did not destroy the nations,[#tn That is, the nations of Canaan.]
as the Lord had commanded them to do.
35They mixed in with the nations
and learned their ways.
36They worshiped their idols,[#tn Or “served.”]
which became a snare to them.
37They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.[#tn The Hebrew term שֵׁדִים (shedim, “demons”) occurs only here and in Deut 32:17. Some type of lesser deity is probably in view.]
38They shed innocent blood –
the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.
The land was polluted by bloodshed.
39They were defiled by their deeds,
and unfaithful in their actions.
40So the Lord was angry with his people[#tn Heb “the anger of the Lord burned against his people.”]
and despised the people who belong to him.
41He handed them over to the nations,[#tn Heb “gave them into the hand of.”]
and those who hated them ruled over them.
42Their enemies oppressed them;
they were subject to their authority.
43Many times he delivered them,[#tn The prefixed verbal form is either preterite or imperfect, in which case it is customary, describing repeated action in past time (“he would deliver”).]
but they had a rebellious attitude,
and degraded themselves by their sin.
44Yet he took notice of their distress,
when he heard their cry for help.
45He remembered his covenant with them,
and relented because of his great loyal love.
46He caused all their conquerors[#tn Or “captors.”]
to have pity on them.
47Deliver us, O Lord , our God!
Gather us from among the nations!
Then we will give thanks to your holy name,
and boast about your praiseworthy deeds.
48The Lord God of Israel deserves praise,[#tn Heb “[be] blessed.” See Pss 18:46; 28:6; 31:21.]
in the future and forevermore.
Let all the people say, “We agree! Praise the Lord !”