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Psalm 78

¹Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,

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

⁴We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

⁵He established a decree in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach to their children;

⁶that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children,

⁷so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;

⁸and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

⁹The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle.

¹⁰They did not keep God’s covenant, but refused to walk according to his law.

¹¹They forgot what he had done, and the miracles that he had shown them.

¹²In the sight of their ancestors he worked marvels in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.

¹³He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap.

¹⁴In the daytime he led them with a cloud, and all night long with a fiery light.

¹⁵He split rocks open in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.

¹⁶He made streams come out of the rock, and caused waters to flow down like rivers.

¹⁷Yet they sinned still more against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

¹⁸They tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved.

¹⁹They spoke against God, saying, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?

²⁰Even though he struck the rock so that water gushed out and torrents overflowed, can he also give bread, or provide meat for his people?”

²¹Therefore, when the Lord heard, he was full of rage; a fire was kindled against Jacob, his anger mounted against Israel,

²²because they had no faith in God, and did not trust his saving power.

²³Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven;

²⁴he rained down on them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven.

²⁵Mortals ate of the bread of angels; he sent them food in abundance.

²⁶He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens, and by his power he led out the south wind;

²⁷he rained flesh upon them like dust, winged birds like the sand of the seas;

²⁸he let them fall within their camp, all around their dwellings.

²⁹And they ate and were well filled, for he gave them what they craved.

³⁰But before they had satisfied their craving, while the food was still in their mouths,

³¹the anger of God rose against them and he killed the strongest of them, and laid low the flower of Israel.

³²In spite of all this they still sinned; they did not believe in his wonders.

³³So he made their days vanish like a breath, and their years in terror.

³⁴When he killed them, they sought for him; they repented and sought God earnestly.

³⁵They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer.

³⁶But they flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues.

³⁷Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not true to his covenant.

³⁸Yet he, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them; often he restrained his anger, and did not stir up all his wrath.

³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and does not come again.

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

⁴¹They tested God again and again, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not keep in mind his power, or the day when he redeemed them from the foe;

⁴³when he displayed his signs in Egypt, and his miracles in the fields of Zoan.

⁴⁴He turned their rivers to blood, so that they could not drink of their streams.

⁴⁵He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them.

⁴⁶He gave their crops to the caterpillar, and the fruit of their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamores with frost.

⁴⁸He gave over their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to thunderbolts.

⁴⁹He let loose on them his fierce anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels.

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

⁵¹He struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the first issue of their strength in the tents of Ham.

⁵²Then he led out his people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

⁵³He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

⁵⁴And he brought them to his holy hill, to the mountain that his right hand had won.

⁵⁵He drove out nations before them; he apportioned them for a possession and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶Yet they tested the Most High God, and rebelled against him. They did not observe his decrees,

⁵⁷but turned away and were faithless like their ancestors; they twisted like a treacherous bow.

⁵⁸For they provoked him to anger with their high places; they moved him to jealousy with their idols.

⁵⁹When God heard, he was full of wrath, and he utterly rejected Israel.

⁶⁰He abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where he dwelt among mortals,

⁶¹and delivered his power to captivity, his glory to the hand of the foe.

⁶²He gave his people to the sword, and vented his wrath on his heritage.

⁶³Fire devoured their young men, and their girls had no marriage song.

⁶⁴Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.

⁶⁵Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a warrior shouting because of wine.

⁶⁶He put his adversaries to rout; he put them to everlasting disgrace.

⁶⁷He rejected the tent of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;

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

⁶⁹He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever.

⁷⁰He chose his servant David, and took him from the sheepfolds;

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

⁷²With upright heart he tended them, and guided them with skillful hand.