Psalm 78:40-72

Common English Bible

⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against God in the wilderness
    and distressed him in the desert!
⁴¹ Time and time again they tested God,
    provoking the holy one of Israel.
⁴² They didn’t remember God’s power—
    the day when he saved them from the enemy;
⁴³     how God performed his signs in Egypt,
    his marvelous works in the field of Zoan.
⁴⁴ God turned their rivers into blood;
    they couldn’t drink from their own streams.
⁴⁵ God sent swarms against them to eat them up,
    frogs to destroy them.
⁴⁶ God handed over their crops to caterpillars,
    their land’s produce to locusts.
⁴⁷ God killed their vines with hail,
    their sycamore trees with frost.
⁴⁸ God delivered their cattle over to disease,^[a]
    their herds to plagues.
⁴⁹ God unleashed his burning anger against them—
    fury, indignation, distress,
    a troop of evil messengers.
⁵⁰ God blazed a path for his wrath.
    He didn’t save them from death,
    but delivered their lives over to disease.
⁵¹ God struck down all of Egypt’s oldest males;
    in Ham’s tents, he struck their pride and joy.
⁵² God led his own people out like sheep,
    guiding them like a flock in the wilderness.
⁵³ God led them in safety—they were not afraid!
    But the sea engulfed their enemies!
⁵⁴ God brought them to his holy territory,
    to the mountain that his own strong hand had acquired.
⁵⁵ God drove out the nations before them
        and apportioned property for them;
    he settled Israel’s tribes in their tents.

⁵⁶ But they tested and defied the Most High God;
    they didn’t pay attention to his warnings.
⁵⁷ They turned away, became faithless just like their ancestors;
    they twisted away like a defective bow.
⁵⁸ They angered God with their many shrines;
    they angered him with their idols.
⁵⁹ God heard and became enraged;
    he rejected Israel utterly.
⁶⁰ God abandoned the sanctuary at Shiloh,
    the tent where he had lived with humans.
⁶¹ God let his power be held captive,
    let his glory go to the enemy’s hand.
⁶² God delivered his people up to the sword;
    he was enraged at his own possession.
⁶³ Fire devoured his young men,
    and his young women had no wedding songs.
⁶⁴ God’s priests were killed by the sword,
    and his widows couldn’t even cry.
⁶⁵ But then my Lord woke up—
    as if he’d been sleeping!
Like a warrior shaking off wine,
⁶⁶     God beat back his foes;
    he made them an everlasting disgrace.

⁶⁷ God rejected the tent of Joseph
    and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim.
⁶⁸ Instead, he chose the tribe of Judah,
    the mountain of Zion, which he loves.
⁶⁹ God built his sanctuary like the highest heaven
    and like the earth, which he established forever.
⁷⁰ And God chose David, his servant,
    taking him from the sheepfolds.
⁷¹ God brought him from shepherding nursing ewes
    to shepherd his people Jacob,
    to shepherd his inheritance, Israel.
⁷² David shepherded them with a heart of integrity;
    he led them with the skill of his hands.