LEB PSA Chapter 78

God’s Faithfulness in Israel’s History

• 78 Listen, O my people, to my teaching. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
• 2 I will offer[fn] a parable with my mouth. I will pour out riddles from long ago,
• 3 that we have heard and known, and our ancestors[fn] have told us.
• 4 We will not hide them from their children,[fn] telling the next generation the praises of Yahweh,
• and his power and his wonders that he has done.
• 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law[fn] in Israel,
• which he commanded our ancestors[fn]
• to teach to their children,
• 6 so that the next generation might know— children yet to be born—
• that they might rise up and tell their children,
• 7 that they might set their confidence in God, and not forget the deeds of God,
• but keep his commandments,
• 8 and not be like their ancestors,[fn] a stubborn and rebellious generation,
• a generation that did not make ready its heart,
• whose spirit was not faithful to God.
• 9 The sons of Ephraim, armed with archers ,[fn] turned back on the day of battle.
• 10 They did not keep the covenant of God and refused to go in his law.[fn]
• 11 They also forgot his deeds, and his wonders that he had shown them.
• 12 In front of their ancestors[fn] he did a wonder, in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
• 13 He split the sea and caused them to go over, and he caused waters to stand like a heap.
• 14 And he led them with the cloud by day, and all night with a fiery light.
• 15 He caused rocks to split in the wilderness and provided drink abundantly as from the depths.
• 16 And he brought streams out of the rock and caused water to flow down like rivers.
• 17 But they sinned still further against him by rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
• 18 And they tested God in their heart by asking food for their craving .[fn]
• 19 And they spoke against God. They said, “Is God able
• to prepare a table in the wilderness?
• 20 Yes, he struck the rock and water flowed and streams gushed out,
• but can he also give food
• or provide meat for his people?”
• 21 Therefore Yahweh heard and he was very angry,
• and a fire was kindled against Jacob,
• and his anger also rose up against Israel,
• 22 because they did not believe God, and they did not trust his salvation.
• 23 Nevertheless, he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven,
• 24 and rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven.
• 25 Humankind ate the bread of angels .[fn] He sent them food enough to be satisfied.
• 26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens and drove along the south wind by his strength.
• 27 Then he rained meat on them like dust, even winged birds[fn] like the sand of the seas.
• 28 He caused them to fall in the midst of his camp, all around his dwellings.
• 29 So they ate and were well filled, and he brought about what they craved.
• 30 They had not yet turned aside from their craving, while their food was still in their mouth,
• 31 the anger of God rose against them, and he killed some of the stoutest of them,
• even the young men of Israel he caused to bow down in death.
• 32 In spite of all this they sinned further and did not believe his wonders.
• 33 And he consumed their days with futility[fn] their years with terror.[fn]
• 34 When he killed some of them, then they sought him, and repented and earnestly sought God.
• 35 And they remembered that God was their rock, and God Most High their redeemer.
• 36 But they enticed him with their mouth and lied to him with their tongue.
• 37 For their heart was not steadfast with him, nor were they faithful to his covenant.
• 38 But he was compassionate; he pardoned[fn] their guilt and did not destroy them.
• And many times he turned back his anger
• and did not stir up all his wrath,
• 39 for he remembered that they were flesh, a passing wind that does not return.
• 40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and vexed him in the wasteland!
• 41 So they again tested God and distressed[fn] the Holy One of Israel.
• 42 And they did not remember his power[fn] when[fn] he redeemed them from the enemy,
• 43 how he performed[fn] his signs in Egypt and his wonders in the region of Zoan,
• 44 when he turned their rivers[fn] to blood so they could not drink from their streams.
• 45 He sent among them flies that devoured them and frogs that destroyed them.
• 46 And he gave their crop to the locusts and their labor to the locust.[fn]
• 47 He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamore trees with sleet.[fn]
• 48 He also handed their cattle over to the hail and their livestock to the lightning bolts.
• 49 He sent against them his fierce anger, rage and indignation and trouble,
• a band of destroying[fn] angels.
• 50 He cleared a path for his anger. He did not spare them[fn] from death
• but handed their life over to the plague.
• 51 And he struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, the first of their virility in the tents of Ham.
• 52 Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them like a herd in the wilderness.
• 53 And he led them safely and they were not afraid, but the sea covered their enemies.
• 54 So he brought them to his holy territory,[fn] this mountain his right hand acquired.[fn]
• 55 And he drove out nations before them and allocated them for an inheritance by boundary line,
• and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
• 56 But they tested and rebelled against God Most High and did not keep his statutes.
• 57 And they turned and were treacherous like their ancestors.[fn] They twisted like a crooked[fn] bow.
• 58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and made him jealous with their images.
• 59 God heard and he was very angry and rejected Israel utterly.
• 60 So he abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh, the tent he had placed among humankind.
• 61 And he gave his strength into captivity and his splendor into the hand of the enemy.
• 62 He also handed his people over to the sword, and he was very angry with his inheritance.
• 63 Fire devoured his young men, and his young women[fn] were not praised.
• 64 His priests fell by the sword, and his widows did not weep.
• 65 Then the Lord awoke like one who had been asleep, awoke like a warrior who had been drunk with wine.[fn]
• 66 And he beat back his enemies; he gave them over to perpetual scorn.
• 67 And he rejected the tent of Joseph, and did not chose the tribe of Ephraim,
• 68 but chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion[fn] that he loved.
• 69 And he built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that he established forever.
• 70 And he chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds.
• 71 He brought him from following nursing ewes to shepherd Jacob, his people,
• and Israel, his inheritance.
• 72 And he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and led them by the skillfulness of his hands.