Appreciating The Goodness Of God

⁴ Remember me, Lord, in Your favor toward Your people.
Visit me with Your salvation,
⁵ So that I may see the prosperity of Your chosen ones,
That I may rejoice in the joy of Your nation,
That I may boast with Your inheritance.

⁶ We have sinned like our fathers,
We have gone astray, we have behaved wickedly.
⁷ Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders;
They did not remember Your abundant kindnesses,
But rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.
⁸ Nevertheless He saved them for the sake of His name,
So that He might make His power known.
⁹ So He rebuked the Red Sea and it dried up,
And He led them through the mighty waters, as through the wilderness.
¹⁰ So He saved them from the hand of one who hated them,
And redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
¹¹ The waters covered their adversaries;
Not one of them was left.
¹² Then they believed His words;
They sang His praise.

¹³ They quickly forgot His works;
They did not wait for His plan,
¹⁴ But became lustfully greedy in the wilderness,
And put God to the test in the desert.
¹⁵ So He gave them their request,
But sent a wasting disease among them.

¹⁶ When they became envious of Moses in the camp,
And of Aaron, the holy one of the Lord,
¹⁷ The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan,
And engulfed the company of Abiram.
¹⁸ And a fire blazed up in their company;
The flame consumed the wicked.

¹⁹ They made a calf in Horeb,
And worshiped a cast metal image.
²⁰ So they exchanged their glory
For the image of an ox that eats grass.
²¹ They forgot God their Savior,
Who had done great things in Egypt,
²² Wonders in the land of Ham,
And awesome things by the Red Sea.
²³ Therefore He said that He would destroy them,
If Moses, His chosen one, had not stood in the gap before Him,
To turn away His wrath from destroying them.
²⁴ Then they rejected the pleasant land;
They did not believe His word,
²⁵ But grumbled in their tents;
They did not listen to the voice of the Lord.
²⁶ Therefore He swore to them
That He would have them fall in the wilderness,
²⁷ And that He would bring down their descendants among the nations,
And scatter them in the lands.

²⁸ They also followed Baal-peor,
And ate sacrifices offered to the dead.
²⁹ So they provoked Him to anger with their deeds,
And a plague broke out among them.
³⁰ Then Phinehas stood up and intervened,
And so the plague was brought to a halt.
³¹ And it was credited to him as righteousness,
To all generations forever.

³² They also provoked Him to wrath at the waters of Meribah,
So that it went badly for Moses on their account.
³³ Because they were rebellious against His Spirit,
He spoke rashly with his lips.