Psalms78

¹ My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth.

² I will open my mouth with a parable; I will utter hidden things, things from of old—

³ things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us.

⁴ We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.

⁵ He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children,

⁶ so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.

⁷ Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.

⁸ They would not be like their ancestors— a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.

⁹ The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle;

¹⁰ they did not keep God’s covenant and refused to live by his law.

¹¹ They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them.

¹² He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

¹³ He divided the sea and led them through; he made the water stand up like a wall.

¹⁴ He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night.

¹⁵ He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them water as abundant as the seas;

¹⁶ he brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers.

¹⁷ But they continued to sin against him, rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.

¹⁸ They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved.

¹⁹ They spoke against God; they said, “Can God really spread a table in the wilderness?

²⁰ True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out, streams flowed abundantly, but can he also give us bread? Can he supply meat for his people?”

²¹ When the Lord heard them, he was furious; his fire broke out against Jacob, and his wrath rose against Israel,

²² for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance.

²³ Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens;

²⁴ he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.

²⁵ Human beings ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.

²⁶ He let loose the east wind from the heavens and by his power made the south wind blow.

²⁷ He rained meat down on them like dust, birds like sand on the seashore.

²⁸ He made them come down inside their camp, all around their tents.

²⁹ They ate till they were gorged— he had given them what they craved.

³⁰ But before they turned from what they craved, even while the food was still in their mouths,

³¹ God’s anger rose against them; he put to death the sturdiest among them, cutting down the young men of Israel.

³² In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.

³³ So he ended their days in futility and their years in terror.

³⁴ Whenever God slew them, they would seek him; they eagerly turned to him again.

³⁵ They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

³⁶ But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues;

³⁷ their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant.

³⁸ Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.

³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the wasteland!

⁴¹ Again and again they put God to the test; they vexed the Holy One of Israel.

⁴² They did not remember his power— the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,

⁴³ the day he displayed his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the region of Zoan.

⁴⁴ He turned their river into blood; they could not drink from their streams.

⁴⁵ He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

⁴⁶ He gave their crops to the grasshopper, their produce to the locust.

⁴⁷ He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

⁴⁸ He gave over their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.

⁴⁹ He unleashed against them his hot anger, his wrath, indignation and hostility— a band of destroying angels.

⁵⁰ He prepared a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death but gave them over to the plague.

⁵¹ He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.

⁵² But he brought his people out like a flock; he led them like sheep through the wilderness.

⁵³ He guided them safely, so they were unafraid; but the sea engulfed their enemies.

⁵⁴ And so he brought them to the border of his holy land, to the hill country his right hand had taken.

⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance; he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.

⁵⁶ But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes.

⁵⁷ Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow.

⁵⁸ They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.

⁵⁹ When God heard them, he was furious; he rejected Israel completely.

⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among humans.

⁶¹ He sent the ark of his might into captivity, his splendor into the hands of the enemy.

⁶² He gave his people over to the sword; he was furious with his inheritance.

⁶³ Fire consumed their young men, and their young women had no wedding songs;

⁶⁴ their priests were put to the sword, and their widows could not weep.

⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine.

⁶⁶ He beat back his enemies; he put them to everlasting shame.

⁶⁷ Then he rejected the tents of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;

⁶⁸ but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved.

⁶⁹ He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that he established forever.

⁷⁰ He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens;

⁷¹ from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel his inheritance.

⁷² And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.