Psalm 95

¹Come! Let’s sing for joy to the Lord !

Let’s shout out praises to our protector who delivers us!

²Let’s enter his presence with thanksgiving![#tn Heb “meet his face.”]

Let’s shout out to him in celebration!

³For the Lord is a great God,

a great king who is superior to all gods.

⁴The depths of the earth are in his hand,[#tn The phrase “in his hand” means within the sphere of his authority.]

and the mountain peaks belong to him.

⁵The sea is his, for he made it.

His hands formed the dry land.

⁶Come! Let’s bow down and worship![#tn Heb “kneel down.”]

Let’s kneel before the Lord , our creator!

⁷For he is our God;

we are the people of his pasture,

the sheep he owns.

Today, if only you would obey him!

⁸He says, “Do not be stubborn like they were at Meribah,[#tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation to clarify that the following words are spoken by the Lord (see vv. 9-11).; #sn The name Meribah means “strife.” Two separate but similar incidents at Meribah are recorded in the Pentateuch (Exod 17:1-7; Num 20:1-13, see also Pss 81:7; 106:32). In both cases the Israelites complained about lack of water and the Lord miraculously provided for them.]

like they were that day at Massah in the wilderness,

⁹where your ancestors challenged my authority,[#tn Heb “where your fathers tested me.”]

and tried my patience, even though they had seen my work.

¹⁰For forty years I was continually disgusted with that generation,[#tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite or an imperfect. If the latter, it emphasizes the ongoing nature of the condition in the past. The translation reflects this interpretation of the verbal form.]

and I said, ‘These people desire to go astray;

they do not obey my commands.’

¹¹So I made a vow in my anger,

‘They will never enter into the resting place I had set aside for them.’”