God admonishes his people; he tells them to be faithful to him and he will provide for their needs.

In verse 8 Israel in line b is parallel with my people in line a. The two can be joined as follows: “My people Israel, listen to my warning! How I wish you would listen to me!” However, it may be best to keep both forms in order to retain the complete parallel.

The nature of the parallelism in verse 9 is the heightening of effect between There shall be no strange god in line a and you shall not bow down to … in line b. Line b steps up the intensity from the mere presence of foreign gods to the worship of them. For this reason the intensification should be reflected in the translation; for example, “not only must you not have strange gods among you, but you must never bow down and worship them” or “you must not have strange gods among you; even more, you must never bow down to them.”

Verse 10a can be rendered “I, the LORD (or, Yahweh), am your God” or “I am the LORD, the God you worship.” He is contrasting himself here with the gods of other nations in verse 9.

Some believe that line c of verse 10 belongs at the end of verse 7 (see New English Bible). This line states that God longs to fulfill the physical and spiritual needs of the people (see verse 16). If the metaphor of a mother bird feeding her young is inappropriate in the receptor language, the translator will normally have to use a nonfigure which may have to favor either physical or spiritual filling. It is probably best to keep the content as general as possible and say, for example, “If you are faithful, I will bless you” or “… give you good gifts.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .