Psalms 78

^{Psalms 78:1} Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.

^{Psalms 78:2} I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

^{Psalms 78:3} that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.

^{Psalms 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.

^{Psalms 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,

^{Psalms 78:6} that the coming generation would know them— even children yet to be born— to arise and tell their own children

^{Psalms 78:7} that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.

^{Psalms 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.

^{Psalms 78:9} The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.

^{Psalms 78:10} They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.

^{Psalms 78:11} They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

^{Psalms 78:12} He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

^{Psalms 78:13} He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

^{Psalms 78:14} He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

^{Psalms 78:15} He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

^{Psalms 78:16} He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.

^{Psalms 78:17} But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

^{Psalms 78:18} They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

^{Psalms 78:19} They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

^{Psalms 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?”

^{Psalms 78:21} Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,

^{Psalms 78:22} because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

^{Psalms 78:23} Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.

^{Psalms 78:24} He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.

^{Psalms 78:25} Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.

^{Psalms 78:26} He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.

^{Psalms 78:27} He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

^{Psalms 78:28} He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

^{Psalms 78:29} So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

^{Psalms 78:30} Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

^{Psalms 78:31} God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

^{Psalms 78:32} In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

^{Psalms 78:33} So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.

^{Psalms 78:34} When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

^{Psalms 78:35} And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

^{Psalms 78:36} But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.

^{Psalms 78:37} Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

^{Psalms 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.

^{Psalms 78:39} He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

^{Psalms 78:40} How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

^{Psalms 78:41} Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

^{Psalms 78:42} They did not remember His power — the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

^{Psalms 78:43} when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

^{Psalms 78:44} He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.

^{Psalms 78:45} He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

^{Psalms 78:46} He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.

^{Psalms 78:47} He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

^{Psalms 78:48} He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

^{Psalms 78:49} He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity— a band of destroying angels.

^{Psalms 78:50} He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.

^{Psalms 78:51} He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.

^{Psalms 78:52} He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

^{Psalms 78:53} He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.

^{Psalms 78:54} He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

^{Psalms 78:55} He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

^{Psalms 78:56} But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.

^{Psalms 78:57} They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

^{Psalms 78:58} They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

^{Psalms 78:59} On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

^{Psalms 78:60} He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.

^{Psalms 78:61} He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

^{Psalms 78:62} He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

^{Psalms 78:63} Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

^{Psalms 78:64} His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

^{Psalms 78:65} Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

^{Psalms 78:66} He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.

^{Psalms 78:67} He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

^{Psalms 78:68} But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.

^{Psalms 78:69} He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.

^{Psalms 78:70} He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;

^{Psalms 78:71} from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.

^{Psalms 78:72} So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.