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          DASV: Psalm 78    

A Maskil of Asaph

1 Give ear to my instruction, O my people;
     incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
     I will utter insightful secrets from the past,
3 which we have heard and known,
     and our fathers have told us about.
4 We will not hide them from their children.
     We will tell the next generation of the glorious deeds of the LORD,
           and his power and wondrous works that he has done.
5 For he established a testimony in Jacob,
     and appointed a law in Israel.
      He commanded our fathers,
     that they should teach them to their children,
6 so that the next generation might know them,
     even the children not yet born,
           who should rise and tell them to their children.
7 Then they will set their hope in God
      and not forget the works of God,
           but keep his commandments,
8 so that they might not be like their forefathers,
     a stubborn and rebellious generation,
           a generation whose heart was not committed,
           and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9 The Ephraimites were armed with bows,
     but they turned back in the day of battle.
10 They did not keep the covenant of God,
     and refused to walk according to his law;
11 they forgot his doings,
     and his wondrous works that he had shown them.
12 He performed wonders in the sight of their fathers,
     in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13 He split the sea, and caused them to pass through;
     he made the waters to stand in a heap.
14 In the daytime he led them with a cloud,
     and all night with a light of fire.
15 He split rocks in the wilderness,
     and gave them drink abundantly as the ocean depths.
16 He brought streams out of the rock,
     and caused waters to run down like rivers.

17 Yet they still continued to sin against him,
     to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
18 They tested God in their heart
     by demanding food to satisfy their appetite.
19 They spoke against God;
     They said, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
20 Yes, he struck a rock so that waters gushed out,
     and streams overflowed.
      Can he also give bread?
     Can he provide meat for his people?"
21 When the LORD heard it, he was enraged;
     a fire was kindled against Jacob,
           and anger flared up against Israel,
22 because they did not believe in God,
     and did not trust in his salvation.
23 Yet he commanded the skies above,
     and opened the doors of heaven;
24 he rained down manna for them to eat,
     and gave them grain from heaven.
25 Humans ate the bread of the angels;
     he sent them food until they were full.
26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens;
     by his power he guided the south wind.
27 He rained meat on them as the dust,
     and winged birds as numerous as the sand of the seas;
28 he had them fall in the middle of their camp,
     all around their tents.
29 They ate until they were gorged;
     he gave them what they craved.
30 While they had not yet satisfied their craving,
     while their food was still in their mouths,
31 the anger of God rose up against them,
     and slew the strongest of them,
           and struck down the young men of Israel.

32 In spite of all this, they continued sinning,
     and did not believe in his wondrous works.
33 So he made their days vanish like a vapor
     and their years in terror.
34 When he slew them, then they sought after him,
     and repented and desired God.
35 They remembered that God was their rock,
     and the Most High God was their redeemer.
36 But they flattered him with their mouths,
     and lied to him with their tongues.
37 For their heart was not committed to him,
     nor were they faithful to his covenant.
38 Yet he, being merciful, forgave their iniquity,
     and did not destroy them;
           many times he held back his anger,
     and did not stir up all his wrath.
39 He remembered that they were but flesh,
     a breeze that blows by never to return.

40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness,
     and grieved him in the desert!
41 They turned again and tested God,
     and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his powerful hand,
     nor the day when he redeemed them from the enemy;
43 when he performed his miraculous signs in Egypt,
     and his wonders in the fields of Zoan.
44 He turned their rivers into blood,
     so that they could not drink from their streams.
45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which bit them;
     and frogs, which ruined them.
46 He gave their crops to the caterpillar,
     and the produce of their toil to the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail,
     and their sycamore-fig trees with frost.
48 He rained hail on their cattle,
     and shot thunderbolts on their flocks.
49 He unleashed his fierce anger on them,
     wrath, indignation and trouble,
           as messengers of disaster.
50 He made a path for his anger;
     he did not spare them from death,
           but gave their life over to the plague.
51 He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
     the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52 Then he led forth his own people like sheep,
     and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 He kept them safe, so that they were not afraid,
     but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 He brought them to the border of his holy land,
     to this mountain which his right hand had won.
55 He drove out the nations before them,
     and allotted them for an inheritance by lot,
           and made the tribes of Israel to settle in their tents.

56 Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God.
     They did not keep his decrees,
57 but turned back and acted treacherously like their forefathers had,
     as unreliable as a defective bow.
58 They provoked him to anger with their high places,
     and moved him to jealousy with their idols.
59 When God heard this, he got angry,
     and totally rejected Israel.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,
     the tent where he settled among humans.
61 He delivered the ark of his power into captivity,
     and his glory into the enemy's hand.
62 He gave his people over to the sword,
     and was angry with his inheritance.
63 Fire devoured their young men;
     their young women had no wedding songs.
64 Their priests fell by the sword;
     their widows did not grieve.

65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
     like a warrior in a drunken rage.
66 He drove his adversaries back;
     he put them to perpetual shame.
67 He rejected the tent of Joseph,
     and did not choose 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 founded it forever.
70 He chose his servant David,
     and took him from the sheepfolds;
71 from following mother sheep with their young,
     he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
           and his inheritance Israel.
72 He cared for them according to the integrity of his heart,
     and guided them with skillful hands.

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