Psalms, chapter 78
What God Has Done for His People
y friends, I beg you to listen as I teach.
2 I will give instruction
and explain the mystery of what happened long ago.
3These are things we learned from our ancestors,
4and we will tell them to the next generation.
We won't keep secret the glorious deeds
and the mighty miracles of the Lord.
5 God gave his Law to Jacob's descendants,
the people of Israel.
And he told our ancestors to teach their children,
6so that each new generation would know his Law
and tell it to the next.
7Then they would trust God and obey his teachings,
without forgetting anything God had done.
8They would be different from their ancestors,
who were stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful to God.
9The warriors from Ephraim were armed with arrows,
but they ran away when the battle began.
10They broke their agreement with God,
and they turned their backs on his teaching.
11They forgot all he had done, even the mighty miracles
12he did for their ancestors near Zoan in Egypt.
13God made a path in the sea
and piled up the water as he led them across.
14He guided them during the day with a cloud,
and each night he led them with a flaming fire.
15God made water flow from rocks
he split open in the desert,
and his people drank freely, as though from a lake.
16He made streams gush out like rivers from rocks.
17But in the desert,
the people of God Most High
kept sinning and rebelling.
18They stubbornly tested God
and demanded from him what they wanted to eat.
19They challenged God by saying,
“Can God provide food out here in the desert?
20It's true God struck the rock
and water gushed out like a river,
but can he give his people bread and meat?”
21When the Lord heard this, he was angry and furious
with Jacob's descendants, the people of Israel.
22They had refused to trust him,
and they had doubted his saving power.
23But God gave a command to the clouds,
and he opened the doors in the skies.
24 From heaven he sent grain that they called manna.
25He gave them more than enough,
and each one of them ate this special food.
26God's mighty power
sent a strong wind from the southeast,
27and it brought birds that covered the ground,
like sand on the beach.
28Then God made the birds fall
in the camp of his people near their tents.
29God gave his people all they wanted,
and each of them ate until they were full.
30But before they had swallowed the last bite,
31God became angry and killed the strongest
and best from the families of Israel.
32But the rest kept on sinning
and would not trust God's miracles.
33So he cut their lives short and made them terrified.
34After he killed some of them,
the others turned to him with all their hearts.
35They remembered God Most High,
the mighty rock that kept them safe.
36But they tried to flatter God, and they told him lies;
37 they were unfaithful and broke their promises.
38Yet God was kind.
He kept forgiving their sins and didn't destroy them.
He often became angry, but never lost his temper.
39God remembered that they were made of flesh
and were like a wind that blows once
and then dies down.
40While they were in the desert,
they often rebelled and made God sad.
41They kept testing him
and caused terrible pain for the Holy One of Israel.
42They forgot about his power
and how he had rescued them from their enemies.
43God showed them all kinds of wonderful miracles
near Zoan in Egypt.
44 He turned the rivers of Egypt into blood,
and no one could drink from the streams.
45 He sent swarms of flies to pester the Egyptians,
and he sent frogs to cause them trouble.
46 God let worms and grasshoppers eat their crops.
47 He destroyed their grapevines
and their fig trees with hail and floods.
48Then he killed their cattle with hail
and their other animals with lightning.
49 God was so angry and furious that he went into a rage
and caused them great trouble
by sending swarms of destroying angels.
50God released his anger
and slaughtered them in a terrible way.
51He killed the first-born son of each Egyptian family.
52 Then God led his people out of Egypt
and guided them in the desert like a flock of sheep.
53 He led them safely along, and they were not afraid,
but their enemies drowned in the sea.
54God brought his people to the sacred mountain
that he had taken by his own power.
55He made nations run from the tribes of Israel,
and he let the tribes take over their land.
56But the people tested God Most High,
and they refused to obey his laws.
57They were as unfaithful as their ancestors,
and they were as crooked as a twisted arrow.
58God demanded all their love,
but they made him angry by worshiping idols.
59So God became furious
and completely rejected the people of Israel.
60Then he deserted his home at Shiloh,
where he lived here on earth.
61He let enemies capture the sacred chest
and let them dishonor him.
62God took out his anger on his chosen ones
and let them be killed by enemy swords.
63Fire destroyed the young men,
and the young women were left with no one to marry.
64Priests died violent deaths,
but their widows were not allowed to mourn.
65Finally the Lord woke up,
like a soldier startled from a drunken sleep.
66God scattered his enemies
and made them ashamed forever.
67Then the Lord decided not to make his home
with Joseph's descendants in Ephraim.
68Instead he chose the tribe of Judah,
and he chose Mount Zion, the place he loves.
69There he built his temple
as lofty as the mountains and as solid as the earth
he made to last forever.
70The Lord God chose David to be his servant
and took him from tending sheep
71and from caring for lambs.
Then God made him the leader of Israel, his own nation.
72David treated the people fairly
and guided them with wisdom.