God

Therefore, he ended their days in futility and their years in terror.

When he brought death among them, they would seek him; they would repent and seek God eagerly,

remembering that God was their Rock, El 'Elyon their Redeemer.

But they tried to deceive him with their words, they lied to him with their tongues;

for their hearts were not right with him, and they were unfaithful to his covenant.

Yet he, because he is full of compassion, forgave their sin and did not destroy; many times he turned away his anger and didn't rouse all his wrath.

So he remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that blows past and does not return.

How often they rebelled against him in the desert and grieved him in the wastelands!

Repeatedly they challenged God and pained the Holy One of Isra'el.

They didn't remember how he used his hand on the day he redeemed them from their enemy,

how he displayed his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the region of Tzo'an.

He sent over them his fierce anger, fury, indignation and trouble, with a company of destroying angels

to clear a path for his wrath. He did not spare them from death, but gave them over to the plague,

But his own people he led out like sheep, guiding them like a flock in the desert.

He led them safely, and they weren't afraid, even when the sea overwhelmed their foes.

He brought them to his holy land, to the hill-country won by his right hand.

Yet they tested El 'Elyon and rebelled against him, refusing to obey his instructions.

They provoked him with their high places and made him jealous with their idols.

God heard, and he was angry; he came to detest Isra'el completely.

He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent he had made where he could live among people.

He gave his strength into exile, his pride to the power of the foe.

He gave his people over to the sword and grew angry with his own heritage.

Then Adonai awoke, as if from sleep, like a warrior shouting for joy from wine.

He struck his foes, driving them back and putting them to perpetual shame.

Rejecting the tents of Yosef and passing over the tribe of Efrayim,