Psalms 78 : 1 (NLT)
O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying,
Psalms 78 : 2 (NLT)
for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past--
Psalms 78 : 3 (NLT)
stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us.
Psalms 78 : 4 (NLT)
We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD, about his power and his mighty wonders.
Psalms 78 : 5 (NLT)
For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children,
Psalms 78 : 6 (NLT)
so the next generation might know them-- even the children not yet born-- and they in turn will teach their own children.
Psalms 78 : 7 (NLT)
So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.
Psalms 78 : 8 (NLT)
Then they will not be like their ancestors-- stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.
Psalms 78 : 9 (NLT)
The warriors of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned their backs and fled on the day of battle.
Psalms 78 : 10 (NLT)
They did not keep God's covenant and refused to live by his instructions.
Psalms 78 : 11 (NLT)
They forgot what he had done-- the great wonders he had shown them,
Psalms 78 : 12 (NLT)
the miracles he did for their ancestors on the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.
Psalms 78 : 13 (NLT)
For he divided the sea and led them through, making the water stand up like walls!
Psalms 78 : 14 (NLT)
In the daytime he led them by a cloud, and all night by a pillar of fire.
Psalms 78 : 15 (NLT)
He split open the rocks in the wilderness to give them water, as from a gushing spring.
Psalms 78 : 16 (NLT)
He made streams pour from the rock, making the waters flow down like a river!
Psalms 78 : 17 (NLT)
Yet they kept on sinning against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
Psalms 78 : 18 (NLT)
They stubbornly tested God in their hearts, demanding the foods they craved.
Psalms 78 : 19 (NLT)
They even spoke against God himself, saying, "God can't give us food in the wilderness.
Psalms 78 : 20 (NLT)
Yes, he can strike a rock so water gushes out, but he can't give his people bread and meat."
Psalms 78 : 21 (NLT)
When the LORD heard them, he was furious. The fire of his wrath burned against Jacob. Yes, his anger rose against Israel,
Psalms 78 : 22 (NLT)
for they did not believe God or trust him to care for them.
Psalms 78 : 23 (NLT)
But he commanded the skies to open; he opened the doors of heaven.
Psalms 78 : 24 (NLT)
He rained down manna for them to eat; he gave them bread from heaven.
Psalms 78 : 25 (NLT)
They ate the food of angels! God gave them all they could hold.
Psalms 78 : 26 (NLT)
He released the east wind in the heavens and guided the south wind by his mighty power.
Psalms 78 : 27 (NLT)
He rained down meat as thick as dust-- birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore!
Psalms 78 : 28 (NLT)
He caused the birds to fall within their camp and all around their tents.
Psalms 78 : 29 (NLT)
The people ate their fill. He gave them what they craved.
Psalms 78 : 30 (NLT)
But before they satisfied their craving, while the meat was yet in their mouths,
Psalms 78 : 31 (NLT)
the anger of God rose against them, and he killed their strongest men. He struck down the finest of Israel's young men.
Psalms 78 : 32 (NLT)
But in spite of this, the people kept sinning. Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him.
Psalms 78 : 33 (NLT)
So he ended their lives in failure, their years in terror.
Psalms 78 : 34 (NLT)
When God began killing them, they finally sought him. They repented and took God seriously.
Psalms 78 : 35 (NLT)
Then they remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their redeemer.
Psalms 78 : 36 (NLT)
But all they gave him was lip service; they lied to him with their tongues.
Psalms 78 : 37 (NLT)
Their hearts were not loyal to him. They did not keep his covenant.
Psalms 78 : 38 (NLT)
Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and did not destroy them all. Many times he held back his anger and did not unleash his fury!
Psalms 78 : 39 (NLT)
For he remembered that they were merely mortal, gone like a breath of wind that never returns.
Psalms 78 : 40 (NLT)
Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland.
Psalms 78 : 41 (NLT)
Again and again they tested God's patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
Psalms 78 : 42 (NLT)
They did not remember his power and how he rescued them from their enemies.
Psalms 78 : 43 (NLT)
They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plain of Zoan.
Psalms 78 : 44 (NLT)
For he turned their rivers into blood, so no one could drink from the streams.
Psalms 78 : 45 (NLT)
He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them and hordes of frogs to ruin them.
Psalms 78 : 46 (NLT)
He gave their crops to caterpillars; their harvest was consumed by locusts.
Psalms 78 : 47 (NLT)
He destroyed their grapevines with hail and shattered their sycamore-figs with sleet.
Psalms 78 : 48 (NLT)
He abandoned their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.
Psalms 78 : 49 (NLT)
He loosed on them his fierce anger-- all his fury, rage, and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels.
Psalms 78 : 50 (NLT)
He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians' lives but ravaged them with the plague.
Psalms 78 : 51 (NLT)
He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt.
Psalms 78 : 52 (NLT)
But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness.
Psalms 78 : 53 (NLT)
He kept them safe so they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies.
Psalms 78 : 54 (NLT)
He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this land of hills he had won for them.
Psalms 78 : 55 (NLT)
He drove out the nations before them; he gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes.
Psalms 78 : 56 (NLT)
But they kept testing and rebelling against God Most High. They did not obey his laws.
Psalms 78 : 57 (NLT)
They turned back and were as faithless as their parents. They were as undependable as a crooked bow.
Psalms 78 : 58 (NLT)
They angered God by building shrines to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols.
Psalms 78 : 59 (NLT)
When God heard them, he was very angry, and he completely rejected Israel.
Psalms 78 : 60 (NLT)
Then he abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh, the Tabernacle where he had lived among the people.
Psalms 78 : 61 (NLT)
He allowed the Ark of his might to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands.
Psalms 78 : 62 (NLT)
He gave his people over to be butchered by the sword, because he was so angry with his own people-- his special possession.
Psalms 78 : 63 (NLT)
Their young men were killed by fire; their young women died before singing their wedding songs.
Psalms 78 : 64 (NLT)
Their priests were slaughtered, and their widows could not mourn their deaths.
Psalms 78 : 65 (NLT)
Then the Lord rose up as though waking from sleep, like a warrior aroused from a drunken stupor.
Psalms 78 : 66 (NLT)
He routed his enemies and sent them to eternal shame.
Psalms 78 : 67 (NLT)
But he rejected Joseph's descendants; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
Psalms 78 : 68 (NLT)
He chose instead the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which he loved.
Psalms 78 : 69 (NLT)
There he built his sanctuary as high as the heavens, as solid and enduring as the earth.
Psalms 78 : 70 (NLT)
He chose his servant David, calling him from the sheep pens.
Psalms 78 : 71 (NLT)
He took David from tending the ewes and lambs and made him the shepherd of Jacob's descendants-- God's own people, Israel.
Psalms 78 : 72 (NLT)
He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skillful hands. A psalm of Asaph.
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