1. “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2. May my teaching trickle like the dew, my words like rain showers on tender grass, and like spring showers on new growth.
3. For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh; ascribe greatness to our God!
4. The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are just; he is a faithful God, and without injustice; righteous and upright is he.
5. They have behaved corruptly toward him; they are not his children; this is their flaw, a generation crooked and perverse.
6. Like this do you treat Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Has he not, your father, created you? He made you, and he established you.
7. Remember the old days, the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you, your elders and they will tell you.
8. When the Most High apportioned the nations, at his dividing up of the sons of humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the children of Israel.
9. For Yahweh’s portion was his people, Jacob the share of his inheritance.
10. He found him in a desert land, and in a howling, desert wasteland; he encircled him, he cared for him, he protected him like the apple of his eye.