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Psalm 78 :: New Living Translation (NLT)

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Unchecked Copy BoxPsa 78:1 - A psalm[fn] of Asaph.

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

Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Full copyright information is provided here. Visit the New Living Translation website.

For more information on this translation, see the NLT Preface.

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