If only My people would listen to Me, if Israel would follow My ways,
Parallel translations
- WEB Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!
- KJV Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!
- NKJV “Oh,that My people would listen to Me, That Israel would walk in My ways!
- NASB “Oh that My people would listen to Me, That Israel would walk in My ways!
- NLT Oh, that my people would listen to me! Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my paths!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God yearns that His people would only listen to Him and walk in His ways. His heart aches with longing for their good.
Overview
The plaintive 'Oh that my people would listen' reveals God's compassionate desire, not a cold deity but a grieved Father. His ways are the path of blessing He longs for them to walk. This tender longing finds its fullest expression in Christ, who wept over Jerusalem's refusal of God's grace (Luke 13:34).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Isa 48:18If only you had paid attention to My commandments, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like waves of the sea.
- Deut 5:29If only they had such a heart to fear Me and keep all My commandments always, so that it might be well with them and with their children forever.
- Deut 10:12–13And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
- Luke 19:41–42As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it
- Matt 23:37O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
- Deut 32:29If only they were wise, they would understand it; they would comprehend their fate.
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 81:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.