Read the Bible

    listen closely to what I say.
² My teaching will fall like drops of rain
    and form on the earth like dew.
My words will fall like showers on young plants,
    like gentle rain on tender grass.
³ I will praise the name of the Lord,
    and his people will tell of his greatness.

⁴ "The Lord is your mighty defender,
    perfect and just in all his ways;
Your God is faithful and true;
    he does what is right and fair.
⁵ But you are unfaithful, unworthy to be his people,^[a]
    a sinful and deceitful nation.
⁶ Is this the way you should treat the Lord,
    you foolish, senseless people?
He is your father, your Creator,
    he made you into a nation.

⁷ "Think of the past, of the time long ago;
    ask your parents to tell you what happened,
    ask the old people to tell of the past.
^8 (a)The Most High assigned nations their lands;
    he determined where peoples should live.
He assigned to each nation a heavenly being,
⁹     but Jacob's descendants he chose for himself.

¹⁰ "He found them wandering through the desert,
    a desolate, wind-swept wilderness.
He protected them and cared for them,
    as he would protect himself.
¹¹ Like an eagle teaching its young to fly,^[b]
    catching them safely on its spreading wings,
    the Lord kept Israel from falling.
¹² The Lord alone led his people
    without the help of a foreign god.

¹³ "He let them rule the highlands,
    and they ate what grew in the fields.
They found wild honey among the rocks;
    their olive trees flourished in stony ground.
¹⁴ Their cows and goats gave plenty of milk;
    they had the best sheep, goats, and cattle,
    the finest wheat, and the choicest wine.

¹⁵ "The Lord's people grew rich, but rebellious;
    they were fat and stuffed with food.
They abandoned God their Creator
    and rejected their mighty savior.
¹⁶ Their idolatry made the Lord jealous;
    the evil they did made him angry.
^17 (b)They sacrificed to gods that are not real,
    new gods their ancestors had never known,
    gods that Israel had never obeyed.
¹⁸ They forgot their God, their mighty savior,
    the one who had given them life.

¹⁹ "When the Lord saw this, he was angry
    and rejected his sons and daughters.
²⁰ ‘I will no longer help them,' he said;
    ‘then I will see what happens to them,
    those stubborn, unfaithful people.
^21 (c)With their idols they have made me angry,
    jealous with their so-called gods,
    gods that are really not gods.
So I will use a so-called nation to make them angry;
    I will make them jealous with a nation of fools.
²² My anger will flame up like fire
    and burn everything on earth.
It will reach to the world below^[c]
    and consume the roots of the mountains.

²³ "‘I will bring on them endless disasters
    and use all my arrows against them.
²⁴ They will die from hunger and fever;
    they will die from terrible diseases.
I will send wild animals to attack them,
    and poisonous snakes to bite them.
²⁵ War will bring death in the streets;
    terrors will strike in the homes.
Young men and young women will die;
    neither babies nor old people will be spared.
²⁶ I would have destroyed them completely,
    so that no one would remember them.
²⁷ But I could not let their enemies boast
    that they had defeated my people,
    when it was I myself who had crushed them.'

²⁸ "Israel is a nation without sense;
    they have no wisdom at all.
²⁹ They fail to see why they were defeated;
    they cannot understand what happened.
³⁰ Why were a thousand defeated by one,
    and ten thousand by only two?
The Lord, their God, had abandoned them;
    their mighty God had given them up.
³¹ Their enemies know that their own gods are weak,
    not mighty like Israel's God.
³² Their enemies, corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah,
    are like vines that bear bitter and poisonous grapes,
³³     like wine made from the venom of snakes.

³⁴ "The Lord remembers what their enemies have done;
    he waits for the right time to punish them.
^35 (d)The Lord will take revenge and punish them;
    the time will come when they will fall;
    the day of their doom is near.
^36 (e)The Lord will rescue his people
    when he sees that their strength is gone.
He will have mercy on those who serve him,
    when he sees how helpless they are.
³⁷ Then the Lord will ask his people,
    ‘Where are those mighty gods you trusted?
³⁸ You fed them the fat of your sacrifices
    and offered them wine to drink.
Let them come and help you now;
    let them run to your rescue.

³⁹ "‘I, and I alone, am God;
    no other god is real.
I kill and I give life, I wound and I heal,
    and no one can oppose what I do.
⁴⁰ As surely as I am the living God,
    I raise my hand and I vow
⁴¹     that I will sharpen my flashing sword
    and see that justice is done.
I will take revenge on my enemies
    and punish those who hate me.
⁴² My arrows will drip with their blood,
    and my sword will kill all who oppose me.
I will spare no one who fights against me;
    even the wounded and prisoners will die.'

^43 (f)"Nations, you must praise the Lord's people—
    he punishes all who kill them.
He takes revenge on his enemies
    and forgives the sins of his people."