Psalm 78    

¹Listen to my instruction, O my people. Turn your ear to the words of my mouth.
  ²I will open my mouth in a proverb. I will pour forth riddles of old
  ³that we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
  ⁴We will not hide them from their children, recounting them to the generation to come the songs of praise about Yahweh, even his strength and his wondrous works that he has done.
  ⁵For he established a testimony in Jacob, yes, he placed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should declare them to their children;
  ⁶in order that the generation to come might know; children to be born, who should arise and recount to their children,
  ⁷that they might place their confidence in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments,
  ⁸and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and disobedient generation, a generation that did not prepare its heart, and whose spirit was not faithful toward God.
  ⁹The children of Ephraim, being well-equipped archers, turned back in the day of battle.
  ¹⁰They did not keep the covenant of God, and they refused to walk according to his law.
  ¹¹They forgot his deeds, even his wondrous acts that he had shown them.
  ¹²He performed a miracle in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
  ¹³He split the sea and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand up like a heap.
  ¹⁴He led them with a cloud by day, and all night with a light of fire.
  ¹⁵He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them abundant water to drink like the deeps.
  ¹⁶He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers.
  ¹⁷But they continued to sin even further against him, to rebel against the Most High in the dry land.
  ¹⁸They even tested God in their heart by asking for food according to their desire.
  ¹⁹Then they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
  ²⁰Behold, he struck a rock and waters gushed out and streams overflowed. Can he give food also? Will he prepare meat for his people?”
  ²¹Therefore Yahweh heard, and he was infuriated. Then a fire was kindled against Jacob, yes, anger also went up against Israel,
  ²²because they did not believe in God, and did not trust in his deliverance.
  ²³Yet he commanded the clouds from above, and opened the two doors of heaven.
  ²⁴He rained down manna upon them to eat, yes, he gave them grain from heaven.
  ²⁵Man ate the food of the mighty. He sent them provisions in abundance.
  ²⁶He caused the east wind to break forth in the heavens. And with his strength he made the south wind blow.
  ²⁷When he rained down meat upon them like the dust, winged birds as the sand of the seas,
  ²⁸then he let it fall in the midst of their camp around their dwellings.
  ²⁹So they ate and were very satisfied. Yes, he brought to them their own desire.
  ³⁰They did not turn from their desire. Their food was still in their mouth
  ³¹when the anger of God went up against them, yes, he killed some of their nobles, and he laid low the youth of Israel.
  ³²Despite all of this, they still sinned, and they did not believe in his wondrous deeds.
  ³³So he ended their days in futility and their years with a sudden ruin.
  ³⁴When he killed them, then they sought him. They repented and desired God.
  ³⁵Yes, they remembered that God was their rock, yes, the Most High God, their redeemer.
  ³⁶But they attempted to flatter him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue.
  ³⁷For their heart was not steadfast toward him, nor were they faithful in his covenant.
  ³⁸But he, being compassionate, forgave their punishment and did not exterminate them. Yes, many times he held back his anger and did not arouse all his wrath.
  ³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that moves along and does not return.
  ⁴⁰How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness yes, they hurt his feelings in the desert!
  ⁴¹Yes, they turned and tested God, and they hurt the Holy One of Israel.
  ⁴²They did not remember his hand, on the day that he redeemed them from their enemy;
  ⁴³when he displayed his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan;
  ⁴⁴and he turned the rivers of the Nile into blood, so they could not drink from their streams.
  ⁴⁵He sent among them a swarm of insects that devoured them, and frogs that destroyed them.
  ⁴⁶He also gave their produce over to the grasshopper, and their product of their toil to the locust.
  ⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with a devastating flood.
  ⁴⁸He gave over their livestock also to the hail and their flocks to plagues.
  ⁴⁹He set upon them his burning anger, fury and indignation and distress, a detachment of harmful angels.
  ⁵⁰He leveled a path for his anger. He did not spare their soul from death, but he delivered their life over to the pestilence
  ⁵¹and struck dead all the firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their vigor in the tents of Ham.
  ⁵²But he led his own people out like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
  ⁵³He led them safely so that they were not afraid, but the sea covered their enemies.
  ⁵⁴He brought them to his holy territory, to this mountain that his right hand had acquired.
  ⁵⁵He also drove out the nations before them, and apportioned for them a measured territory as an inheritance, and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
  ⁵⁶Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God and they did not keep his testimonies,
  ⁵⁷but they turned aside and acted unfaithfully like their fathers. They, like a slack bow, failed to function.
  ⁵⁸For they made him angry by their pagan shrines and made him jealous by their carved images.
  ⁵⁹God heard and was filled with anger, then he utterly rejected Israel,
  ⁶⁰so he rejected the dwelling place at Shiloh, the tent that he pitched among human beings,
  ⁶¹and he gave up his strength to captivity, and his beauty into the foe’s hand.
  ⁶²He also delivered his people over to the sword and was filled with anger at his inheritance.
  ⁶³Fire devoured his young men, and his virgins were not praised.
  ⁶⁴His priests fell by the sword and his widows could not weep.
  ⁶⁵Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, like a mighty man overcome by wine.
  ⁶⁶He struck his foes on the rear. He gave to them a perpetual reproach.
  ⁶⁷He even rejected the tent of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
  ⁶⁸But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion that he loved.
  ⁶⁹He built his sanctuary like the heights of heaven, like the earth that he has established to last forever.
  ⁷⁰He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;
  ⁷¹He brought him from tending ewes to shepherd Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.
  ⁷²So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the discernment of his hands.