Psalms 78:2-72 ▼

2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will pour forth things hidden from of old,

3 which we have heard and known, and our fathers have recounted to us.

4 We will not hide them from their children, recounting to a following generation: The praises of YHWH, and His strength, and His wonders that He has done.

5 For He established a testimony in Jacob, and a law He has appointed in Israel, which He commanded to our fathers, to make them known to their sons,

6 so that a following generation would know them—the sons to be born—to arise and recount to their sons,

7 that they should put their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, and keep His commandments.

8 And they should not be like their fathers—a generation being stubborn and rebellious, a generation that did not set firm its heart, and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9 The sons of Ephraim, handling and shooting the bow, turned back on the day of battle.

10 They did not keep the covenant of God, and in His law they refused to walk,

11 and they forgot His deeds, and His wonders that He had shown them.

12 In the eyes of their fathers He did a wonder, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

13 He divided the sea and let them cross over, and the waters He made stand up like a heap.

14 And He led them with the cloud by day, and all the night with a light of fire.

15 He split open the rocks in the wilderness, and gave to drink, like the depths in abundance.

16 And He brought forth streams from the rock, and made waters come down like the rivers.

17 And they added still to sin against Him by rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

18 And they tested God in their heart, by requesting food of their soul.

19 And they spoke against God, saying, “Is God able to arrange a table in the wilderness?

20 Behold, He struck the rock, and the waters gushed out, and torrents overflowed; and also is He able to give bread or provide food for His people?”

21 Therefore YHWH heard and boiled over, and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger came up against Israel,

22 because they did not have faith in God, and they did not trust in His salvation.

23 And He commanded the clouds above, and the doors of the heavens He opened.

24 And He rained down on them manna to eat—and he gave to them the grain of the heavens.

25 The bread of the mighty ones a man ate; food He sent to them in abundance.

26 An east wind He caused to blow in the heavens, and He guided by His power the south wind.

27 And He rained upon them food like the dust, and winged bird like the sand of the seas,

28 and He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

29 So they ate and were satisfied greatly, and their desires He brought to them.

30 They were not estranged from their desire, and still their food was in their mouth.

31 And the anger of God came upon them, and He killed the fattest of them and subdued the young men of Israel.

32 In all this, still they sinned, and they did not have faith in His wonders.

33 And He finished off their days in futility, and their years in terror.

34 When He slew them, they would seek Him, and they turned back and sought after God.

35 And they remembered that God was their rock, and El-Elyon their Redeemer.

36 And they deceived Him with their mouth, and with their tongue they lied to Him.

37 And their heart was not established with Him, and they were not faithful to His covenant.

38 And He, the compassionate One, forgave the iniquity and did not destroy them; and He often restrained His anger, and He did not stir up all His wrath.

39 And He remembered that they were flesh, a breath going by that does not return.

40 How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

41 And they turned back and tested God, and they pained the Holy One of Israel.

42 They have not remembered His hand, the day when He ransomed them from the adversary,

43 when He worked His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan.

44 And He turned their rivers into blood, and from their streams they could not drink.

45 He sent among them the swarm, and it consumed them, and the frog, and it destroyed them.

46 And He gave to the ravager their produce, and their labor to the locust.

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

48 And He gave up to the hail their cattle, and their flocks to the firebolts.

49 He sent against them the burning of His anger—fury, and rage, and distress, a discharge of messengers of evils.

50 He made level a path for His anger; He did not spare their soul from death, and He gave over their life to the pestilence.

51 He even struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the first of the vigour in the tents of Ham.

52 And His people He made go forth like sheep, and He guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

53 And He led them to safety, and they did not dread, and the sea covered their enemies.

54 And He brought them to the border of His holiness, this mountain His right hand had acquired.

55 And He drove out the nations before their face, and caused them to fall in the line of inheritance, and the tribes of Israel He settled in their tents.

56 And they tested and provoked El-Elyon, and His testimonies they did not keep.

57 And they turned back and were treacherous like their fathers; they were turned like a bow of deceit.

58 And they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and with their carved images they made Him jealous.

59 God heard and boiled over, and exceedingly He rejected Israel;

60 and He left behind the dwelling place of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men,

61 and He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

62 And He delivered up His people to the sword, and on His inheritance He boiled over.

63 Fire consumed His young men, and His virgins have not been praised.

64 His priests fell by the sword, and the widows could not weep.

65 And the Lord awoke as a sleeper, as a mighty one overcome by wine.

66 And He beat his adversaries back; a reproach forever He gave to them.

67 And He rejected the tent of Joseph, and the tribe of Ephraim He would not choose.

68 And He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.

69 And He built His sanctuary like the heights; like the earth He founded it forever.

70 And He chose David His servant, and He took him from the folds of his flock;

71 He brought him from tending the ewes to be shepherd of Jacob His people, and of Israel His inheritance.

72 And he tended them with the integrity of his heart, and by the skillfulness of his hands he guided them.