Psalm 81

Oh, That My People Would Listen to Me

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. Of Asaph.

¹Sing aloud to God our strength;

shout for joy to the God of Jacob!

²Raise a song; sound the tambourine,

the sweet lyre with the harp.

³Blow the trumpet at the new moon,

at the full moon, on our feast day.

⁴For it is a statute for Israel,

a rule of the God of Jacob.

⁵He made it a decree in Joseph

when he went out over the land of Egypt.

I hear a language I had not known:

⁶“I relieved your shoulder of the burden;

your hands were freed from the basket.

⁷In distress you called, and I delivered you;

I answered you in the secret place of thunder;

I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

⁸Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!

O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

⁹There shall be no strange god among you;

you shall not bow down to a foreign god.

¹⁰I am the Lord your God,

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

¹¹“But my people did not listen to my voice;

Israel would not submit to me.

¹²So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,

to follow their own counsels.

¹³Oh, that my people would listen to me,

that Israel would walk in my ways!

¹⁴I would soon subdue their enemies

and turn my hand against their foes.

¹⁵Those who hate the Lord would cringe toward him,

and their fate would last forever.

¹⁶But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat,

and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”