Psalms 78

¹Psalms 78:1. A Maskil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.²Psalms 78:2. I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,³Psalms 78:3. that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.⁴Psalms 78:4. We will not hide them from their children but will declare to the next generation the praises of the LORD and His might and the wonders He has performed.⁵Psalms 78:5. For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,⁶Psalms 78:6. that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children⁷Psalms 78:7. that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.⁸Psalms 78:8. Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.⁹Psalms 78:9. The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.¹⁰Psalms 78:10. They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.¹¹Psalms 78:11. They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.¹²Psalms 78:12. He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.¹³Psalms 78:13. He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.¹⁴Psalms 78:14. He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.¹⁵Psalms 78:15. He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.¹⁶Psalms 78:16. He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.¹⁷Psalms 78:17. But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.¹⁸Psalms 78:18. They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.¹⁹Psalms 78:19. They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?²⁰Psalms 78:20. When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”²¹Psalms 78:21. Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,²²Psalms 78:22. because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.²³Psalms 78:23. Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.²⁴Psalms 78:24. He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.²⁵Psalms 78:25. Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.²⁶Psalms 78:26. He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.²⁷Psalms 78:27. He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.²⁸Psalms 78:28. He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.²⁹Psalms 78:29. So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.³⁰Psalms 78:30. Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,³¹Psalms 78:31. God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.³²Psalms 78:32. In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.³³Psalms 78:33. So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.³⁴Psalms 78:34. When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.³⁵Psalms 78:35. And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.³⁶Psalms 78:36. But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.³⁷Psalms 78:37. Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.³⁸Psalms 78:38. And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.³⁹Psalms 78:39. He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.⁴⁰Psalms 78:40. How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!⁴¹Psalms 78:41. Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.⁴²Psalms 78:42. They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,⁴³Psalms 78:43. when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.⁴⁴Psalms 78:44. He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.⁴⁵Psalms 78:45. He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.⁴⁶Psalms 78:46. He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.⁴⁷Psalms 78:47. He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.⁴⁸Psalms 78:48. He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.⁴⁹Psalms 78:49. He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.⁵⁰Psalms 78:50. He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.⁵¹Psalms 78:51. He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.⁵²Psalms 78:52. He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.⁵³Psalms 78:53. He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.⁵⁴Psalms 78:54. He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.⁵⁵Psalms 78:55. He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.⁵⁶Psalms 78:56. But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.⁵⁷Psalms 78:57. They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.⁵⁸Psalms 78:58. They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.⁵⁹Psalms 78:59. On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.⁶⁰Psalms 78:60. He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.⁶¹Psalms 78:61. He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.⁶²Psalms 78:62. He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.⁶³Psalms 78:63. Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.⁶⁴Psalms 78:64. His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.⁶⁵Psalms 78:65. Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.⁶⁶Psalms 78:66. He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.⁶⁷Psalms 78:67. He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.⁶⁸Psalms 78:68. But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.⁶⁹Psalms 78:69. He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.⁷⁰Psalms 78:70. He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;⁷¹Psalms 78:71. from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.⁷²Psalms 78:72. So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.