Psalm 106

Israel’s unfaithfulness and God’s mercy

¹Praise the LORD! Give the LORD thanks, for he is good; his loyal love lasts forever. ²Who can put into words the mighty deeds of the LORD or tell out all the praise he deserves? ³How blessed are those who hold to justice and do what is right at every moment! ⁴LORD, think of me when you favor your people; come to me with your saving help, ⁵so that I may see the good things you give your chosen ones, be glad with your nation in its gladness, and give glory together with the people who belong to you. ⁶Like our ancestors, we have sinned; we have gone astray and done what is evil. ⁷Our ancestors in Egypt did not take your wonders to heart; they did not remember how great your loyal love was, and at the sea, the Red Sea, they rebelled. ⁸Still he rescued them, for the honor of his name, to show how mighty he is. ⁹He spoke sharply to the Red Sea, and it went dry; he brought them over the deep places as if across open country. ¹⁰He rescued them from the power of the one who hated them and set them free from the enemy’s grip. ¹¹The waters closed over their enemies; not a single one remained. ¹²Then they trusted his promises and sang songs of praise to him. ¹³How quickly they forgot his deeds! They would not wait to hear what he intended. ¹⁴Out in the wilderness their cravings ran wild, and in the wasteland they challenged God. ¹⁵He granted what they demanded, but with it he sent a disease that wasted them away. ¹⁶They turned jealous of Moses there in the camp, and of Aaron, the man set apart as holy to the LORD. ¹⁷The ground split open and swallowed Dathan; it closed over Abiram and his followers. ¹⁸Then fire flared up in their company, and flames devoured the wicked. ¹⁹They made a calf at Horeb and bowed low before an idol of molten metal. ²⁰They traded God, their glory, for the figure of a grass-eating bull. ²¹They forgot God their Savior and the great deeds he had worked in Egypt, ²²wonders in the land of Ham, fearsome acts at the Red Sea. ²³So he said he would wipe them out; but Moses, his chosen one, stood in the gap before him to turn his anger away so that he would not destroy them. ²⁴They looked down on the land of delight and put no faith in what he had promised, ²⁵They muttered in their tents and would not heed the voice of the LORD. ²⁶So he raised his hand in an oath that they would die in the wilderness, ²⁷and that their children would be brought down among the nations and scattered through foreign lands. ²⁸They bound themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate offerings made to the dead. ²⁹They made him angry by what they did, and plague burst out among them. ³⁰Then Phinehas rose and stepped in, and the plague was halted. ³¹And that deed was counted to him as righteousness for all generations, for all time. ³²At the waters of Meribah they made him angry, and Moses paid dearly because of them, ³³for they defied his Spirit, and Moses let hasty words pass his lips.^{a 34}They did not wipe out the peoples the LORD had told them to destroy, ³⁵instead they mixed with the nations and took up their ways. ³⁶They served those nations’ idols, which turned into a trap for them. ³⁷They even offered up their own sons and daughters to demons. ³⁸They spilled the blood of the innocent, their own sons and daughters, slaughtered as offerings to Canaan’s idols, and the land was made unclean by bloodshed. ³⁹They made themselves unclean by what they did and were unfaithful like a prostitute in their ways. ⁴⁰So the LORD burned with anger against his people and came to loathe his own possession. ⁴¹He handed them over to other nations, and people who hated them became their masters. ⁴²Their enemies crushed them and forced them to bow under their power. ⁴³Again and again he rescued them, but they kept to their own rebellious plans and sank down in their sin. ⁴⁴Even so, he saw the trouble they were in when their cry reached him. ⁴⁵For their sake he called to mind his covenant and turned from his anger, because his loyal love is so great. ⁴⁶He moved all those who had carried them off to treat them with pity. ⁴⁷Rescue us, LORD our God, and bring us back together from among the nations, so that we may thank your holy name and make our boast in praising you. ⁴⁸May the LORD, the God of Israel, be blessed from ages past to ages to come! And let all the people answer, “Amen!” Praise the LORD!