Psalm 78:1–72

¹A Maskil^a of Asaph.

Give ear, O my people, to my instruction;

listen to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth in parables;

I will utter things hidden from the beginning,^b

³that we have heard and known

and our fathers have relayed to us.

⁴We 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.

⁵For He established a testimony in Jacob

and appointed a law in Israel,

which He commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

⁶that the coming generation would know them—

even children yet to be born—

to arise and tell their own children

⁷that they should put their confidence in God,

not forgetting His works,

but keeping His commandments.

⁸Then they will not be like their fathers,

a stubborn and rebellious generation,

whose heart was not loyal,

whose spirit was not faithful to God.

⁹The archers of Ephraim

turned back on the day of battle.

¹⁰They failed to keep God’s covenant

and refused to live by His law.

¹¹They forgot what He had done,

the wonders He had shown them.

¹²He worked wonders before their fathers

in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

¹³He split the sea and brought them through;

He set the waters upright like a wall.

¹⁴He led them with a cloud by day

and with a light of fire all night.

¹⁵He split the rocks in the wilderness

and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

¹⁶He brought streams from the stone

and made water flow down like rivers.

¹⁷But they continued to sin against Him,

rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

¹⁸They willfully tested God

by demanding the food they craved.

¹⁹They spoke against God, saying,

“Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

²⁰When He struck the rock, water gushed out

and torrents raged.

But can He also give bread

or supply His people with meat?”

²¹Therefore the LORD heard

and was filled with wrath;

so a fire was kindled against Jacob,

and His anger flared against Israel,

²²because they did not believe God

or rely on His salvation.

²³Yet He commanded the clouds above

and opened the doors of the heavens.

²⁴He rained down manna for them to eat;

He gave them grain from heaven.^c

²⁵Man ate the bread of angels;

He sent them food in abundance.

²⁶He stirred the east wind from the heavens

and drove the south wind by His might.

²⁷He rained meat on them like dust,

and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

²⁸He felled them in the midst of their camp,

all around their dwellings.

²⁹So they ate and were well filled,

for He gave them what they craved.

³⁰Yet before they had filled their desire,

with the food still in their mouths,

³¹God’s anger flared against them,

and He put to death their strongest

and subdued the young men of Israel.

³²In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;

despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

³³So He ended their days in futility,^d

and their years in sudden terror.

³⁴When He slew them, they would seek Him;

they repented and searched for God.

³⁵And they remembered that God was their Rock,

that God Most High^e was their Redeemer.

³⁶But they deceived Him with their mouths,

and lied to Him with their tongues.

³⁷Their hearts were disloyal to Him,

and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

³⁸And 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.

³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh,

a passing breeze that does not return.

⁴⁰How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness

and grieved Him in the desert!

⁴¹Again and again they tested God

and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not remember His power^f —

the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

⁴³when He performed His signs in Egypt

and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

⁴⁴He turned their rivers to blood,

and from their streams they could not drink.

⁴⁵He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,

and frogs that devastated them.

⁴⁶He gave their crops to the grasshopper,

the fruit of their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷He killed their vines with hailstones

and their sycamore-figs with sleet.^g

⁴⁸He abandoned their cattle to the hail

and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

⁴⁹He unleashed His fury against them,

wrath, indignation, and calamity—

a band of destroying angels.

⁵⁰He cleared a path for His anger;

He did not spare them from death

but delivered their lives to the plague.

⁵¹He struck all the firstborn of Egypt,

the virility in the tents of Ham.

⁵²He led out His people like sheep

and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

⁵³He led them safely, so they did not fear,

but the sea engulfed their enemies.

⁵⁴He brought them to His holy land,

to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

⁵⁵He drove out nations before them

and apportioned their inheritance;

He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶But they tested and disobeyed God Most High,

for they did not keep His decrees.

⁵⁷They turned back and were faithless like their fathers,

twisted like a faulty bow.

⁵⁸They enraged Him with their high places

and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

⁵⁹On hearing it, God was furious

and rejected Israel completely.

⁶⁰He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,

the tent He had pitched among men.

⁶¹He delivered His strength to captivity,

and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

⁶²He surrendered His people to the sword

because He was enraged by His heritage.

⁶³Fire consumed His young men,

and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

⁶⁴His priests fell by the sword,

but their widows could not lament.

⁶⁵Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,

like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

⁶⁶He beat back His foes;

He put them to everlasting shame.

⁶⁷He rejected the tent of Joseph

and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁸But He chose the tribe of Judah,

Mount Zion, which He loved.

⁶⁹He built His sanctuary like the heights,

like the earth He has established forever.

⁷⁰He chose David His servant

and took him from the sheepfolds;

⁷¹from tending the ewes He brought him

to be shepherd of His people Jacob,

of Israel His inheritance.

⁷²So David shepherded them with integrity of heart

and guided them with skillful hands.