Zaburi 78

Tell the next generation: grace despite rebellion

¹A maskil of Asaph. \q My people, listen closely to my instruction; \q bend your ears to what I say. ²I will open my mouth to speak a parable; \q I will bring out the hidden lessons of long ago, ³what we have heard and learned, \q what our forebears passed on to us. ⁴We will not conceal them from their children; \q we will pass on to those who come after us the deeds for which the LORD is praised, \q his strength, and the marvels he has worked. ⁵He laid down a solemn charge in Jacob and set up instruction in Israel; \q he ordered our forebears \q to teach these to their children, ⁶so that those born later, children not yet born, would know them, \q and would grow up and tell them to their own children, ⁷so that they would rest their hope on God, \q remember the works of God, \q and keep his commands, ⁸and would not be like their ancestors, a defiant and rebellious generation, \q whose hearts were never steady \q and whose spirits did not stay true to God. ⁹The Ephraimites, armed and skilled with the bow, \q fled when the day of battle came. ¹⁰They failed to keep the covenant God had made \q and would not follow his instruction. ¹¹They let his deeds slip from memory, \q the marvels they had seen him work. ¹²In full view of their ancestors he worked marvels \q in Egypt, in the region of Zoan. ¹³He split the sea in two and took them across, \q piling up the waters in a heap. ¹⁴By day he guided them with the cloud, \q and all through the night with the glow of fire. ¹⁵He broke open rocks in the desert \q and let them drink water as plentiful as the ocean depths. ¹⁶He drew streams out of the cliff \q and sent water rushing down like rivers. ¹⁷Yet they kept on sinning against him, \q defying the Most High in the parched desert. ¹⁸In their hearts they challenged God, \q insisting on food to feed their cravings. ¹⁹They spoke against God \q and said, “Can God lay out a meal in the desert? ²⁰Yes, he hit the rock and water burst out and torrents swept along; \q but is he able to give bread too, \q or to put meat before his people?” ²¹So when the LORD heard it, he was enraged; \q fire blazed up against Jacob, \q and his anger rose against Israel, ²²because they had no faith in God \q and did not rely on his power to save. ²³Even so, he gave orders to the clouds above \q and threw open the doors of the sky, ²⁴and showered manna on them for food; \q he handed them grain from heaven. ²⁵Everyone ate the bread of the mighty ones; \q he sent them supplies until they had their fill. ²⁶He set the east wind moving across the sky \q and steered the south wind by his power. ²⁷He showered meat on them as thick as dust, \q birds on the wing as many as the grains of sand by the sea. ²⁸He brought them down in the middle of their camp, \q all around their tents. ²⁹They ate and were more than satisfied; \q he gave them what they longed for. ³⁰They had not yet turned away from their craving; \q they were still chewing their food, ³¹when the anger of God blazed against them; \q he slew the best-fed among them \q and brought down the young men of Israel. ³²Even so they went on sinning; \q in spite of his marvels they would not believe. ³³So he let their days drift away like vapor \q and ended their years in sudden dread. ³⁴Whenever he struck them down, they would look for him; \q they would turn back and search hard for God. ³⁵They recalled that their Rock was God, \q that God Most High was the one who had set them free. ³⁶But their words to him were only flattery; \q with their tongues they lied to him, ³⁷and their hearts were not set on him; \q they did not stay true to his covenant. ³⁸Yet he was full of compassion; he covered their guilt and did not wipe them out. \q Many a time he held back his anger \q and did not let all his fury loose. ³⁹He remembered that they were only flesh, \q a breeze that blows past and does not come back. ⁴⁰How many times they defied him in the wilderness \q and caused him grief in the barren land! ⁴¹Once more they challenged God \q and wounded the Holy One of Israel. ⁴²They forgot his power \q and the day he bought them free from the enemy, ⁴³when he displayed his signs in Egypt \q and his marvels in the fields around Zoan. ⁴⁴He changed their rivers into blood, \q and their running water could not be drunk. ⁴⁵He sent swarms of insects among them to eat them up, \q and frogs to bring them to ruin. ⁴⁶He handed their harvest over to the grasshopper \q and all they had worked for to the swarming locust. ⁴⁷He struck their vines dead with hail \q and froze their sycamore-figs with ice. ⁴⁸He left their cattle at the mercy of the hail, \q and their herds to the flashing fire. ⁴⁹He let loose on them the heat of his anger, \q rage and fury and distress, \q a troop of angels bringing disaster. ⁵⁰He cleared a road for his anger; \q he did not hold them back from death, \q but handed their lives over to the plague. ⁵¹He cut down every firstborn in Egypt, \q the eldest sons, the first of their strength, throughout the tents of Ham. ⁵²Then he moved his people out like sheep \q and herded them like a flock across the wilderness. ⁵³He kept them safe as he led them, and they were not afraid; \q but the sea closed over their enemies. ⁵⁴He led them to his sacred land, \q to these mountains that his own power had gained. ⁵⁵He pushed out nations ahead of them \q and shared out their land by measuring line as a possession; \q he gave the tribes of Israel their tents to live in. ⁵⁶Still they challenged God Most High and defied him; \q they did not keep his decrees. ⁵⁷They turned away and broke faith as their ancestors did; \q they went crooked like a warped bow. ⁵⁸They angered him with their hilltop shrines, \q and by their idols roused his jealous anger. ⁵⁹When God heard, his anger blazed, \q and he cast Israel off entirely. ⁶⁰He deserted the sanctuary at Shiloh, \q the tent where he had made his home among people. ⁶¹He let his might be carried off as a captive, \q his glory into enemy hands. ⁶²He handed his people over to the sword; \q he raged against his own inheritance. ⁶³Their young men were eaten up by fire; \q no one sang the wedding song for their young women. ⁶⁴Their priests were cut down by the sword, \q and the widows they left could not raise a lament. ⁶⁵Then the Lord roused himself like a sleeper waking, \q like a warrior shouting as the wine stirs him. ⁶⁶He beat his enemies back \q and put them to lasting shame. ⁶⁷He turned down the tent of Joseph; \q Ephraim’s tribe was not the one he chose, ⁶⁸instead he picked out the tribe of Judah \q and Mount Zion, which he holds dear. ⁶⁹He made his sanctuary as lofty as the heavens \q and as firm as the earth, which he founded to last forever. ⁷⁰He singled out David, his servant, \q and called him away from the sheepfolds, ⁷¹from walking behind the nursing ewes he brought him \q to care for Jacob, his people, \q and for Israel, his own possession, as their shepherd. ⁷²He cared for them as a shepherd with an honest heart \q and led them with skillful hands.