1-4. Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth,bend your ears to what I tell you.I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb;I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths,Stories we heard from our fathers,counsel we learned at our mother’s knee.We’re not keeping this to ourselves,we’re passing it along to the next generation—God’s fame and fortune,the marvelous things he has done.
5-8. He planted a witness in Jacob,set his Word firmly in Israel,Then commanded our parentsto teach it to their childrenSo the next generation would know,and all the generations to come—Know the truth and tell the storiesso their children can trust in God,Never forget the works of Godbut keep his commands to the letter.Heaven forbid they should be like their parents,bullheaded and bad,A fickle and faithless bunchwho never stayed true to God.
9-16. The Ephraimites, armed to the teeth,ran off when the battle began.They were cowards to God’s Covenant,refused to walk by his Word.They forgot what he had done—marvels he’d done right before their eyes.He performed miracles in plain sight of their parentsin Egypt, out on the fields of Zoan.He split the Sea and they walked right through it;he piled the waters to the right and the left.He led them by day with a cloud,led them all the night long with a fiery torch.He split rocks in the wilderness,gave them all they could drink from underground springs;He made creeks flow out from sheer rock,and water pour out like a river.