Hear, O ye heavens, the things I speak, let the earth give ear to the words of my mouth. Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil as the dew, as a shower upon the herb, and as drops upon the grass. Because I will invoke the name of the Lord: give ye magnificence to our God. The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments: God is faithful and without any iniquity, he is just and right. They have sinned against him, and are not of his children in their filth: they are a wicked and perverse generation. Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he thy father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee? Remember the days of old, think upon every generation: ask thy father, and he will declare to thee: thy elders and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided the nations: when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed the bounds of people according to the number of the children of Israel. But the Lord's portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror, and of vast wilderness: he led him about, and taught him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye. As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, he spread his wings, and hath taken him and carried him on his shoulders. The Lord alone was his leader: and there was no strange god with him.