Psalm 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 the LORD,

his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done.

⁵For he established a covenant 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 marvellous 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 the LORD 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 also rained 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 strongest,

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 enquired 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 amongst them swarms of flies, which devoured them;

and frogs, which destroyed them.

⁴⁶He also gave their increase to the caterpillar,

and their labour to the locust.

⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hail,

their sycamore fig trees with frost.

⁴⁸He also gave over their livestock 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 amongst 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 skilfulness of his hands.