Psalms 78:1–72

^{Mas′kil. Of A′saph.}

¹Do give ear, O my people, to my law;
Incline ​YOUR​ ear to the sayings of my mouth.

²In a proverbial saying I will open my mouth;
I will cause riddles of long ago to bubble forth,
³Which we have heard and know,
And which our own fathers have related to us;
⁴Which we do not hide from their sons,
Relating [them] even to the generation to come,
The praises of Jehovah and his strength
And his wonderful things that he has done.

⁵And he proceeded to raise up a reminder in Jacob,
And a law he set in Israel,
Things that he commanded our forefathers,
To make them known to their sons;
⁶In order that the generation to come, the sons that were to be born, might know [them],
That they might rise up and relate [them] to their sons,
⁷And that they might set their confidence in God himself
And not forget the practices of God but observe his own commandments.

⁸And they should not become like their forefathers,
A generation stubborn and rebellious,
A generation who had not prepared their heart
And whose spirit was not trustworthy with God.

⁹The sons of E′phra‧im, though armed shooters of the bow,
Retreated in the day of fight.

¹⁰They did not keep the covenant of God,
And in his law they refused to walk.

¹¹They also began to forget his dealings
And his wonderful works that he caused them to see.

¹²In front of their forefathers he had done marvelously
In the land of Egypt, the field of Zo′an.

¹³He split the sea, that he might let them pass over,
And he caused the waters to stand like a dam.

¹⁴And he continued to lead them with a cloud by day
And the whole night with a light of fire.

¹⁵He proceeded to split rocks in the wilderness,
That he might cause [them] to drink an abundance just like watery deeps.

¹⁶And he went bringing forth streams out of a crag
And causing waters to descend just like rivers.

¹⁷And they kept sinning still more against him
By rebelling against the Most High in the waterless region;
¹⁸And they proceeded to test God in their heart
By asking for something to eat for their soul.

¹⁹So they began to speak against God.
They said: “Is God able to arrange a table in the wilderness?”

²⁰Look! He struck a rock
That waters might flow and torrents themselves might flood forth.
“Is he able also to give bread itself,
Or can he prepare sustenance for his people?”

²¹That was why Jehovah heard and began to be furious;
And fire itself was kindled against Jacob,
And anger also ascended against Israel.

²²For they did not put faith in God,
And they did not trust in salvation by him.

²³And he proceeded to command the cloudy skies above,
And he opened the very doors of heaven.

²⁴And he kept raining upon them manna to eat,
And the grain of heaven he gave to them.

²⁵Men ate the very bread of powerful ones;
Provisions he sent them to satisfaction.

²⁶He began making an east wind burst forth in the heavens
And making a south wind blow by his own strength.

²⁷And he proceeded to make sustenance rain upon them just like dust,
Even winged flying creatures just like the sand grains of the seas.

²⁸And he kept making [them] fall in the middle of his camp,
All around his tabernacles.

²⁹And they went eating and satisfying themselves very much,
And what they desired he proceeded to bring to them.

³⁰They had not turned aside from their desire,
While their food was yet in their mouth,
³¹When God’s wrath itself ascended against them.
And he went killing among their stout ones;
And the young men of Israel he made collapse.

³²Despite all this they sinned some more
And did not put faith in his wonderful works.

³³So he brought their days to an end as if a mere exhalation,
And their years by the disturbance.

³⁴As often as he killed them, they also inquired for him,
And they returned and looked for God.

³⁵And they began to remember that God was their Rock,
And that God the Most High was their Avenger.

³⁶And they tried to fool him with their mouth;
And with their tongue they tried to lie to him.

³⁷And their heart was not steadfast with him;
And they did not prove faithful in his covenant.

³⁸But he was merciful; he would cover the error and not bring ruin.
And many times he made his anger turn back,
And he would not rouse up all his rage.

³⁹And he kept remembering that they were flesh,
That the spirit is going forth and does not come back.

⁴⁰How often they would rebel against him in the wilderness,
They would make him feel hurt in the desert!

⁴¹And again and again they would put God to the test,
And they pained even the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not remember his hand,
The day that he redeemed them from the adversary,
⁴³How he put his signs in Egypt itself
And his miracles in the field of Zo′an;
⁴⁴And how he began changing to blood their Nile canals,
So that they could not drink from their own streams.

⁴⁵He proceeded to send upon them gadflies, that these might eat them up;
And frogs, that these might bring them to ruin.

⁴⁶And he began to give to the cockroaches their yield,
And their toil to the locusts.

⁴⁷He went killing their vine even by the hail
And their sycamore trees by hailstones.

⁴⁸And he proceeded to hand over their beasts of burden even to the hail
And their livestock to the flaming fever.

⁴⁹He went sending upon them his burning anger,
Fury and denunciation and distress,
Deputations of angels bringing calamity.

⁵⁰He proceeded to prepare a pathway for his anger.
He did not hold back their soul from death itself;
And their life he handed over even to the pestilence.

⁵¹Finally he struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
The beginning of their generative power in the tents of Ham.

⁵²Afterward he caused his people to depart just like a flock,
And conducted them like a drove in the wilderness.

⁵³And he kept leading them in security, and they felt no dread;
And the sea covered their enemies themselves.

⁵⁴And he proceeded to bring them to his holy territory,
This mountainous region that his right hand acquired.

⁵⁵And because of them he gradually drove out the nations,
And by the measuring line he went allotting them an inheritance,
So that he caused the tribes of Israel to reside in their own homes.

⁵⁶And they began to test and rebel against God the Most High,
And his reminders they did not keep.

⁵⁷They also kept turning back and acting treacherously like their forefathers;
They turned around like a loose bow.

⁵⁸And they kept offending him with their high places,
And with their graven images they kept inciting him to jealousy.

⁵⁹God heard and got to be furious,
And so he contemned Israel very much.

⁶⁰And he finally forsook the tabernacle of Shi′loh,
The tent in which he resided among earthling men.

⁶¹And he proceeded to give his strength even to captivity
And his beauty into the hand of the adversary.

⁶²And he kept handing over his people to the sword itself,
And against his inheritance he became furious.

⁶³His young men a fire ate up,
And his virgins were not praised.

⁶⁴As for his priests, they fell by the very sword,
And their own widows did not give way to weeping.

⁶⁵Then Jehovah began to awake as from sleeping,
Like a mighty one sobering up from wine.

⁶⁶And he went striking down his adversaries from behind;
A reproach of indefinite duration he gave to them.

⁶⁷And he proceeded to reject the tent of Joseph;
And the tribe of E′phra‧im he did not choose.

⁶⁸But he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loved.

⁶⁹And he began to build his sanctuary just like the heights,
Like the earth that he has founded to time indefinite.

⁷⁰And so he chose David his servant
And took him from the pens of the flock.

⁷¹From following the females giving suck
He brought him in to be a shepherd over Jacob his people
And over Israel his inheritance.

⁷²And he began to shepherd them according to the integrity of his heart,
And with the skillfulness of his hands he began leading them.