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But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, And did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, And did not stir up all His wrath;
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For He remembered that they were but flesh, A breath that passes away and does not come again.
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How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, And grieved Him in the desert!
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Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel.
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They did not remember His power: The day when He redeemed them from the enemy,
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When He worked His signs in Egypt, And His wonders in the field of Zoan;
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Turned their rivers into blood, And their streams, that they could not drink.
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He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them, And frogs, which destroyed them.
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He also gave their crops to the caterpillar, And their labor to the locust.
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He destroyed their vines with hail, And their sycamore trees with frost.
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He also gave up their cattle to the hail, And their flocks to fiery lightning.
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He cast on them the fierceness of His anger, Wrath, indignation, and trouble, By sending angels of destruction among them.
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He made a path for His anger; He did not spare their soul from death, But gave their life over to the plague,
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And destroyed all the firstborn in Egypt, The first of their strength in the tents of Ham.
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But He made His own people go forth like sheep, And guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
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And He led them on safely, so that they did not fear; But the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
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And He brought them to His holy border, This mountain which His right hand had acquired.
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He also drove out the nations before them, Allotted them an inheritance by survey, And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.
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Yet they tested and provoked the Most High God, And did not keep His testimonies,
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But turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers; They were turned aside 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 carved images.
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When God heard this, He was furious, And greatly abhorred Israel,
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So that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, The tent He had placed among men,
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And delivered His strength into captivity, And His glory into the enemy's hand.
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He also gave His people over to the sword, And was furious with His inheritance.
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The fire consumed their young men, And their maidens were not given in marriage.
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Their priests fell by the sword, And their widows made no lamentation.
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Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, Like a mighty man who shouts because of wine.
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And He beat back His enemies; He put them to a perpetual reproach.
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Moreover He rejected the tent of Joseph, And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
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But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved.