Psalm 78:1-72 BSB

[1] A Maskil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth. [2] I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning, [3] that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us. [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. [5] For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children, [6] that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children [7] that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments. [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. [9] The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle. [10] They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law. [11] They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them. [12] He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan. [13] He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall. [14] He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night. [15] He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas. [16] He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers. [17] But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High. [18] They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved. [19] They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness? [20] When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?” [21] Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel, [22] because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation. [23] Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens. [24] He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven. [25] Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance. [26] He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might. [27] He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea. [28] He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings. [29] So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved. [30] Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths, [31] God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel. [32] In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe. [33] So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror. [34] When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God. [35] And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer. [36] But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues. [37] Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant. [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. [39] He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return. [40] How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert! [41] Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel. [42] They did not remember His power —the day He redeemed them from the adversary, [43] when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan. [44] He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink. [45] He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them. [46] He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust. [47] He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet. [48] He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning. [49] He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels. [50] He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague. [51] He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham. [52] He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness. [53] He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies. [54] He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired. [55] He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents. [56] But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees. [57] They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow. [58] They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols. [59] On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely. [60] He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men. [61] He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary. [62] He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage. [63] Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs. [64] His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament. [65] Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine. [66] He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame. [67] He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim. [68] But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved. [69] He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever. [70] He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds; [71] from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance. [72] So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.