Psalms78

¹ O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying,

² for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—

³ stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us.

⁴ We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders.

⁵ For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children,

⁶ so the next generation might know them— even the children not yet born— and they in turn will teach their own children.

⁷ So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.

⁸ Then they will not be like their ancestors— stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.

⁹ The warriors of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned their backs and fled on the day of battle.

¹⁰ They did not keep God’s covenant and refused to live by his instructions.

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

¹² the miracles he did for their ancestors on the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.

¹³ For he divided the sea and led them through, making the water stand up like walls!

¹⁴ In the daytime he led them by a cloud, and all night by a pillar of fire.

¹⁵ He split open the rocks in the wilderness to give them water, as from a gushing spring.

¹⁶ He made streams pour from the rock, making the waters flow down like a river!

¹⁷ Yet they kept on sinning against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

¹⁸ They stubbornly tested God in their hearts, demanding the foods they craved.

¹⁹ They even spoke against God himself, saying, “God can’t give us food in the wilderness.

²⁰ Yes, he can strike a rock so water gushes out, but he can’t give his people bread and meat.”

²¹ When the Lord heard them, he was furious. The fire of his wrath burned against Jacob. Yes, his anger rose against Israel,

²² for they did not believe God or trust him to care for them.

²³ But he commanded the skies to open; he opened the doors of heaven.

²⁴ He rained down manna for them to eat; he gave them bread from heaven.

²⁵ They ate the food of angels! God gave them all they could hold.

²⁶ He released the east wind in the heavens and guided the south wind by his mighty power.

²⁷ He rained down meat as thick as dust— birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore!

²⁸ He caused the birds to fall within their camp and all around their tents.

²⁹ The people ate their fill. He gave them what they craved.

³⁰ But before they satisfied their craving, while the meat was yet in their mouths,

³¹ the anger of God rose against them, and he killed their strongest men. He struck down the finest of Israel’s young men.

³² But in spite of this, the people kept sinning. Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him.

³³ So he ended their lives in failure, their years in terror.

³⁴ When God began killing them, they finally sought him. They repented and took God seriously.

³⁵ Then they remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their redeemer.

³⁶ But all they gave him was lip service; they lied to him with their tongues.

³⁷ Their hearts were not loyal to him. They did not keep his covenant.

³⁸ Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and did not destroy them all. Many times he held back his anger and did not unleash his fury!

³⁹ For he remembered that they were merely mortal, gone like a breath of wind that never returns.

⁴⁰ Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland.

⁴¹ Again and again they tested God’s patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴² They did not remember his power and how he rescued them from their enemies.

⁴³ They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plain of Zoan.

⁴⁴ For he turned their rivers into blood, so no one could drink from the streams.

⁴⁵ He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them and hordes of frogs to ruin them.

⁴⁶ He gave their crops to caterpillars; their harvest was consumed by locusts.

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

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

⁴⁹ He loosed on them his fierce anger— all his fury, rage, and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels.

⁵⁰ He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives but ravaged them with the plague.

⁵¹ He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt.

⁵² But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness.

⁵³ He kept them safe so they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies.

⁵⁴ He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this land of hills he had won for them.

⁵⁵ He drove out the nations before them; he gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes.

⁵⁶ But they kept testing and rebelling against God Most High. They did not obey his laws.

⁵⁷ They turned back and were as faithless as their parents. They were as undependable as a crooked bow.

⁵⁸ They angered God by building shrines to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols.

⁵⁹ When God heard them, he was very angry, and he completely rejected Israel.

⁶⁰ Then he abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh, the Tabernacle where he had lived among the people.

⁶¹ He allowed the Ark of his might to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands.

⁶² He gave his people over to be butchered by the sword, because he was so angry with his own people—his special possession.

⁶³ Their young men were killed by fire; their young women died before singing their wedding songs.

⁶⁴ Their priests were slaughtered, and their widows could not mourn their deaths.

⁶⁵ Then the Lord rose up as though waking from sleep, like a warrior aroused from a drunken stupor.

⁶⁶ He routed his enemies and sent them to eternal shame.

⁶⁷ But he rejected Joseph’s descendants; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁸ He chose instead the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which he loved.

⁶⁹ There he built his sanctuary as high as the heavens, as solid and enduring as the earth.

⁷⁰ He chose his servant David, calling him from the sheep pens.

⁷¹ He took David from tending the ewes and lambs and made him the shepherd of Jacob’s descendants— God’s own people, Israel.

⁷² He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skillful hands.