Psalms 78:1 (BSB)
A Maskil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.

Psalms 78:2 (BSB)
I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

Psalms 78:3 (BSB)
that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.

Psalms 78:4 (BSB)
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.

Psalms 78:5 (BSB)
For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,

Psalms 78:6 (BSB)
that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children

Psalms 78:7 (BSB)
that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.

Psalms 78:8 (BSB)
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.

Psalms 78:9 (BSB)
The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.

Psalms 78:10 (BSB)
They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.

Psalms 78:11 (BSB)
They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

Psalms 78:12 (BSB)
He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

Psalms 78:13 (BSB)
He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

Psalms 78:14 (BSB)
He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

Psalms 78:15 (BSB)
He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

Psalms 78:16 (BSB)
He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.

Psalms 78:17 (BSB)
But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

Psalms 78:18 (BSB)
They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

Psalms 78:19 (BSB)
They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

Psalms 78:20 (BSB)
When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”

Psalms 78:21 (BSB)
Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,

Psalms 78:22 (BSB)
because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

Psalms 78:23 (BSB)
Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.

Psalms 78:24 (BSB)
He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.

Psalms 78:25 (BSB)
Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.

Psalms 78:26 (BSB)
He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.

Psalms 78:27 (BSB)
He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

Psalms 78:28 (BSB)
He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

Psalms 78:29 (BSB)
So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

Psalms 78:30 (BSB)
Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

Psalms 78:31 (BSB)
God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

Psalms 78:32 (BSB)
In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

Psalms 78:33 (BSB)
So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.

Psalms 78:34 (BSB)
When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

Psalms 78:35 (BSB)
And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

Psalms 78:36 (BSB)
But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.

Psalms 78:37 (BSB)
Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

Psalms 78:38 (BSB)
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.

Psalms 78:39 (BSB)
He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

Psalms 78:40 (BSB)
How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

Psalms 78:41 (BSB)
Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Psalms 78:42 (BSB)
They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

Psalms 78:43 (BSB)
when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

Psalms 78:44 (BSB)
He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.

Psalms 78:45 (BSB)
He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

Psalms 78:46 (BSB)
He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.

Psalms 78:47 (BSB)
He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

Psalms 78:48 (BSB)
He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

Psalms 78:49 (BSB)
He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.

Psalms 78:50 (BSB)
He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.

Psalms 78:51 (BSB)
He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.

Psalms 78:52 (BSB)
He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

Psalms 78:53 (BSB)
He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.

Psalms 78:54 (BSB)
He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

Psalms 78:55 (BSB)
He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

Psalms 78:56 (BSB)
But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.

Psalms 78:57 (BSB)
They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

Psalms 78:58 (BSB)
They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

Psalms 78:59 (BSB)
On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

Psalms 78:60 (BSB)
He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.

Psalms 78:61 (BSB)
He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

Psalms 78:62 (BSB)
He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

Psalms 78:63 (BSB)
Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

Psalms 78:64 (BSB)
His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

Psalms 78:65 (BSB)
Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

Psalms 78:66 (BSB)
He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.

Psalms 78:67 (BSB)
He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

Psalms 78:68 (BSB)
But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.

Psalms 78:69 (BSB)
He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.

Psalms 78:70 (BSB)
He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;

Psalms 78:71 (BSB)
from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.

Psalms 78:72 (BSB)
So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.
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