Psalms Chapter 78

78 : 1 Give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

78 : 2 I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter dark sayings of old,

78 : 3 which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

78 : 4 We will not hide them from their sons, telling to the generation to come the praises of Jehovah, and his strength, and his wondrous works that he has done.

78 : 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their sons,

78 : 6 that the generation to come might know, even the sons who should be born, who should arise and tell to their sons,

78 : 7 that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments,

78 : 8 and might not be as their fathers: a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God.

78 : 9 The sons of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.

78 : 10 They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law.

78 : 11 And they forgot his doings, and his wondrous works that he had shown them.

78 : 12 He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

78 : 13 He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through. And he made the waters to stand as a heap.

78 : 14 In the daytime also he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire.

78 : 15 He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.

78 : 16 He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.

78 : 17 Yet they went on to still sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.

78 : 18 And they challenged God in their heart by asking food according to their desire.

78 : 19 Yea, they spoke against God. They said, Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?

78 : 20 Behold, he smote the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide flesh for his people?

78 : 21 Therefore Jehovah heard, and was angry. And a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also went up against Israel,

78 : 22 because they did not believe in God, and did not trust in his salvation.

78 : 23 Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven,

78 : 24 and he rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them food from heaven.

78 : 25 Man ate the bread of the mighty. He sent them food to the full.

78 : 26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens, and by his power he guided the south wind.

78 : 27 He also rained flesh upon them as the dust, and winged birds as the sand of the seas.

78 : 28 And he let it fall in the midst of their camp round about their habitations.

78 : 29 So they ate, and were well filled, and he gave them their own desire.

78 : 30 They were not estranged from that which they desired. Their food was yet in their mouths

78 : 31 when the anger of God went up against them, and killed of the fattest of them, and smote down the young men of Israel.

78 : 32 For all this they still sinned, and did not believe in his wondrous works.

78 : 33 Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.

78 : 34 When he killed them, then they inquired after him, and they returned and sought God earnestly.

78 : 35 And they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God their redeemer.

78 : 36 But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue.

78 : 37 For their heart was not right with him, nor were they faithful in his covenant.

78 : 38 But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and destroyed not. Yea, many a time he turned his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath.

78 : 39 And he remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and comes not again.

78 : 40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!

78 : 41 And they turned again and challenged God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

78 : 42 They did not remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary,

78 : 43 how he set his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan,

78 : 44 and turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink.

78 : 45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them.

78 : 46 He also gave their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.

78 : 47 He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost.

78 : 48 He also gave over their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

78 : 49 He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, a band of agents of evil.

78 : 50 He made a path for his anger. He spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,

78 : 51 and smote all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.

78 : 52 But he led forth his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

78 : 53 And he led them safely, so that they feared not, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

78 : 54 And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had gotten.

78 : 55 He also drove out the nations before them, and allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.

78 : 56 Yet they challenged and rebelled against the Most High God, and kept not his testimonies,

78 : 57 but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.

78 : 58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

78 : 59 When God heard, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel,

78 : 60 so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men,

78 : 61 and delivered their strength into captivity, and their glory into the adversary's hand.

78 : 62 He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance.

78 : 63 Fire devoured their young men, and their virgins had no marriage-song.

78 : 64 Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.

78 : 65 Then the Lord awoke as out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts because of wine.

78 : 66 And he smote his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach.

78 : 67 Moreover he refused the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim,

78 : 68 but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved.

78 : 69 And he built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever.

78 : 70 He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds.

78 : 71 He brought him from following the ewes that have their young, to be the shepherd of Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.

78 : 72 So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.