Psalms 78

¹Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth. ²I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, ³Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. ⁴We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done. ⁵For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; ⁶that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children, ⁷that they might set their hope in God, and not forget God’s deeds, but keep his commandments, ⁸and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God. ⁹The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. ¹⁰They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law. ¹¹They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them. ¹²He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. ¹³He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap. ¹⁴In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire. ¹⁵He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths. ¹⁶He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers. ¹⁷Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert. ¹⁸They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire. ¹⁹Yes, they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? ²⁰Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide meat for his people?” ²¹Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel, ²²because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation. ²³Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven. ²⁴He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky. ²⁵Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food to the full. ²⁶He caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By his power he guided the south wind. ²⁷He rained also meat on them as the dust; winged birds as the sand of the seas. ²⁸He let them fall in the middle of their camp, around their habitations. ²⁹So they ate, and were well filled. He gave them their own desire. ³⁰They didn’t turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths, ³¹when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of their fattest, and struck down the young men of Israel. ³²For all this they still sinned, and didn’t believe in his wondrous works. ³³Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror. ³⁴When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly. ³⁵They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer. ³⁶But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. ³⁷For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant. ³⁸But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn’t stir up all his wrath. ³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again. ⁴⁰How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert! ⁴¹They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel. ⁴²They didn’t remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary; ⁴³how he set his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan, ⁴⁴he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink. ⁴⁵He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. ⁴⁶He gave also their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust. ⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost. ⁴⁸He gave over their livestock also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. ⁴⁹He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil. ⁵⁰He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence, ⁵¹and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham. ⁵²But he led out his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. ⁵³He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. ⁵⁴He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken. ⁵⁵He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. ⁵⁶Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies; ⁵⁷but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were twisted like a deceitful bow. ⁵⁸For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images. ⁵⁹When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel; ⁶⁰So that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men; ⁶¹and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary’s hand. ⁶²He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance. ⁶³Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song. ⁶⁴Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn’t weep. ⁶⁵Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine. ⁶⁶He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach. ⁶⁷Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim, ⁶⁸But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved. ⁶⁹He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever. ⁷⁰He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; ⁷¹from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. ⁷²So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.

World English Bible (public domain)