Psalm 77-78
EasyEnglish Bible
Asaph wrote this song for the music leader, Jeduthun.
A prayer in times of trouble[a]
77 I will call out to God for help.
I will call aloud to God,
and he will listen to me.
2 When trouble came to me,
I looked for the Lord to help me.
All through the night,
I lifted my hands to him while I prayed.
But I did not feel peace in myself.
3 When I think about God,
I am sad and upset.
I do not know if he will help me.
Selah.
4 God, you do not let me close my eyes to sleep.
I am so upset that I cannot even speak.[b]
5 I think about my life long ago,
in the years that have passed.
6 At night, I remember the songs that I sang before.
I think carefully about what is happening.
7 I ask myself, ‘Will the Lord always turn against me?
Will he never be kind to me again?
8 Does he no longer have a faithful love for his people?
Will he never do what he has promised us?
9 Has God forgotten to be kind and help us?
Is he so angry that he will not be kind to us any more?’[c]
Selah.
10 Then I said, ‘This makes me very upset!
Has the Most High God stopped helping us?
11 I will remember the things that the Lord has done.
Yes, I will remember the miracles that you did long ago.
12 I will think about everything that you have done.
I will think carefully about all those great things.’
13 God, your ways are holy.
There is no god as great as our God.
14 You are the God who does miracles.
You show the nations
that you are very powerful.
15 You used your power to rescue your people.
Yes, you saved the descendants
of Jacob and Joseph.
Selah.
16 The waters of the sea saw you, God.
When they saw you,
they shook with fear!
Even the deepest seas were afraid.
17 Rain poured down from the clouds.
The noise of thunder was in the skies.
Your arrows of lightning
shot everywhere.
18 The sound of your thunder was in the storm.
Your lightning made all the world bright.
The earth shook.
19 You went through the sea.
Your path went through the deep water,
but nobody saw where your feet had gone.
20 You led your people,
as a shepherd leads his sheep.
Moses and Aaron did that for you.
Asaph wrote this special song.
God has been good to his people[d]
78 My people, listen to what I am teaching you.
Listen to the words that I speak.
2 I will tell you something to make you wise.
Then you will understand
things that happened long ago.
3 We have heard about these things
and we know them.
Our ancestors have told them to us,
4 and we will not hide them from our children.
We will tell our children and our grandchildren
why they should praise the Lord.
We will tell them about his strength,
and about the great things that he has done.
5 He gave his laws to Jacob's descendants,
the Israelite people.
He commanded our ancestors
to teach them to their children.
6 Then the children would know about them,
even the children still to be born.
When the time came,
they too would tell their children.
7 Then their family would trust in God.
They would not forget what God had done.
They would obey his commands.
8 So they would not be like their ancestors,
who turned against God.
Those people refused to obey God,
and they did not trust him to be their guide.
9 The soldiers of Ephraim had bows and arrows,
but they ran away when the battle started![e]
10 They did not obey the covenant
that God had made with them.
They refused to obey his laws.
11 They forgot about what he had done for them.
They forgot the miracles that he had shown them.
12 He did miracles for their ancestors to see,
in the region of Egypt that is called Zoan.
13 He cut the sea into two separate parts,
and he led them through it.
He made a path between two walls of water.[f]
14 He showed them the way with a cloud in the day
and with light from a fire all night.[g]
15 He broke rocks into pieces in the wilderness
so that his people had plenty of water.
Springs of water came from deep in the earth.
16 He caused streams to pour from the rocks
so that the waters ran like rivers.[h]
17 But his people continued to do bad things against him.
In the wilderness,
they turned against the Most High God.
18 They decided to test God,
to see what he would do.
They demanded to have the food that they liked best.
19 They spoke against God, and they said,
‘Can God give us food to eat here in the wilderness?
20 Yes, water did come out when he hit the rock.
There were streams of water that poured out like a river.
But can he also give us food to eat?
Can he supply meat for his people?’
21 When the Lord heard this,
he was very angry.
So he sent fire to punish his people.
He became very angry against the Israelites.
22 They did not trust God,
that he had the power to save them.
23 So God commanded the clouds high above
to give food to his people.
He caused the skies to open like a door.
24 He poured down manna like rain,
so that they could eat grain that came from heaven.[i]
25 In that way, people ate the special bread of angels!
God gave them all the food that they could eat.
26 Then God caused a wind to blow from the east.
He used his power to send a south wind too.
27 He caused meat to pour down on them,
like dust from the sky.
The birds covered all the ground
like sand on the shore of the sea.[j]
28 God made the birds fall near the tents
where his people were living.
29 They ate as much as they could eat.
Yes, God gave them what they had demanded!
30-31 But God became very angry with them,
even before they had finished eating.
While the food was still in their mouths,
he killed the strongest men among them.
Many of the best young Israelite men died.
32 Even when this happened,
the people continued to do bad things.
When God had done these miracles,
they still did not trust him to help them.
33 So he made their lives end quickly, like a breath.
They became very afraid.
34 When God killed some of them,
the other people turned to God.
They were sorry and they prayed to him.
35 They remembered that God
was their strong Rock.
They remembered that the Most High God
was their Redeemer.
36 But they deceived him with their words.
What they said to him was lies.
37 They did not really trust him.
They did not obey the covenant
that he had made with them.
38 But God was kind to them,
and he forgave them for their sins.
He did not destroy them.
Many times he was patient,
and he did not become angry with them.
39 He remembered that they were weak and human,
like a wind that blows away and does not return.
40 When the Israelite people were in the wilderness,
they often turned against God.
That caused God to be very sad.
41 Many times they tested God, the Holy One of Israel,
so that he was very upset.
42 They forgot about his great power,
and how he rescued them from their enemies.
43 He did powerful miracles in Egypt,
in the region of Zoan.
44 He caused the Egyptians' rivers to become blood,
so that they could not drink water from them.[k]
45 He sent large numbers of flies to bite them.[l]
He sent frogs that destroyed their land.[m]
46 He caused locusts to eat their crops,
and everything that grew in their fields.[n]
47 He destroyed their vines with hail.
He destroyed their fig trees with frost.
48 He sent hail to kill their cows.
He sent lightning to kill their other animals.[o]
49 He was so angry with them,
that he sent terrible things to punish them.
Great trouble came to them,
like an army of his angels that bring death.
50 Nothing could stop his anger.
He did not save them from death.
He let bad disease kill them.
51 He killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt.
The strongest men of Ham's descendants died.[p]
52 But God led his own people safely out of Egypt.
But took them through the wilderness,
like a shepherd leads his sheep.[q]
53 They were safe with him as their guide,
and they were not afraid.
But their enemies drowned in the sea.[r]
54 He brought his people to the edge of his holy land.
It was land with the mountain
that he had taken with his power.[s]
55 He chased away the nations that were living there.
He gave to each tribe their own piece of land,
so that Israel's tribes could live there.[t]
56 But the Israelites continued to test the Most High God,
and they turned against him.
They did not obey his commands.[u]
57 They turned away from him and they deceived him,
as their ancestors had done.
They were useless,
like a bow that would not shoot straight!
58 The places where they worshipped their idols
made God very angry.
59 God heard what they were doing,
and he became very angry.
He turned against the Israelite people.
60 He went away from his home at Shiloh.
That was the tent where he lived among people.[v]
61 He let Israel's enemies take away the Covenant Box,
that showed his power and his glory.[w]
62 He was so angry with his own people,
he let their enemies kill them in battle.
63 Fire killed their young men in war.
There was nobody for the young women to marry.
64 Their priests died in battle.
Their widows had no chance to weep.
65 Then the Lord woke up,
like someone had woken him from sleep.
He shouted loudly,
like a soldier who has drunk a lot of wine.
66 He chased his enemies away.
He caused them to be ashamed for ever.
67 He chose not to live among Joseph's descendants.
He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68 Instead, he chose the tribe of Judah.
He chose Mount Zion,
the place which he loves.
69 There he built a temple for himself,
to be like his home in heaven.
He made it to be strong, like the earth itself,
so that it would always be there.
70 Also, he chose his servant, David.
He took David away from the fields,
71 so that he no longer took care of his father's sheep.
He became like a shepherd,
to lead his people, Jacob's descendants.
He ruled the people that belonged to God,
the Israelite people.[x]
72 David took care of them with an honest heart.
He was wise in the way that he led them.
Footnotes
- 77:1 In verses 10-15, the writer remembers the great things that God has done. He remembers that God is still great and powerful. Verses 16-20 are about God leading his people from Egypt to their new home in Canaan. They had to go through the Red Sea. God was so powerful that he made a dry road through the sea for his people. After they crossed the Red Sea, Moses and Aaron led them through the wilderness.
- 77:4 The writer cannot sleep and he does not know what to pray.
- 77:9 There are 6 questions which the writer asked. They mean, ‘Will God ever help us again?’
- 78:1 This psalm tells about God's people until the time of King David. It tells us that God was good to his people, but they often did not obey him.
- 78:9 God gave his people everything that they needed, but they still did not trust him. Ephraim was one of Israel's 12 tribes.
- 78:13 God led his people on a dry path through the Red Sea. See Exodus 14:21-22.
- 78:14 See Exodus 13:21-22.
- 78:16 See Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:2-13.
- 78:24 See Exodus 16:2-15; Numbers 11:4-23.
- 78:27 See Numbers 11:31-35.
- 78:44 See Exodus 7:17-21.
- 78:45 See Exodus 8:20-24.
- 78:45 See Exodus 8:1-6.
- 78:46 See Exodus 10:12-15.
- 78:48 See Exodus 9:22-25.
- 78:51 See Exodus 12:29.
- 78:52 See Exodus 13:17-22.
- 78:53 See Exodus 14:26-28.
- 78:54 See Exodus 15:17; Joshua 3:14-17.
- 78:55 See Joshua 11:16-23.
- 78:56 See Judges 2:11-15.
- 78:60 See Joshua 18:1.
- 78:61 See 1 Samuel 4:4-22.
- 78:71 See 1 Samuel 16:11-12; 2 Samuel 7:8.
Romans 10
EasyEnglish Bible
10 My Christian friends, I want God to save Israel's people. I want that very much. I pray to God that he will save them. 2 I can say this about them: They really want to serve God well. But they do not understand the right way to do this. 3 They have not understood the way that God accepts people. Instead, they tried to make their own way to become right with God. They refused to accept God's way that would make them right with him. 4 God gave his Law to Israel's people for a purpose. But Christ has finished that purpose. So now, every person who believes in Christ becomes right with God.
God wants to save everyone
5 Moses wrote about how God's Law could help people to be right with God. He said, ‘If a person obeys the rules in God's Law, then he will live by them.’[a] 6 But the Bible speaks also about another way. It shows how to become right with God because you trust him. It says: ‘Do not say to yourself, “Someone will have to go up into heaven.” ’ (That means: ‘Someone will have to bring Christ down from up there.’) 7 ‘Do not say to yourself either, “Someone will have to go down into the world below.” ’ (That means: ‘Someone will have to bring Christ up from the place where dead people are.’) 8 But the Bible says: ‘God's message is near you. You can talk about it, and you can think about it.’[b] That is the same message that we are teaching to people. We tell people to believe in Jesus Christ.
9 The message is this: You must say clearly that Jesus is the Lord. Also, you must believe deep inside yourself that God raised him to life again after his death. Then God will save you. 10 God accepts people as right with him when they believe like that, deep inside themselves. And when people say clearly that Jesus is Lord, God saves them. 11 It says in the Bible:
‘Everyone who believes in him will not be disappointed.’[c]
12 It says ‘everyone’. There is no difference between Jews and Gentiles. There is the same Lord for all of them. He helps everyone who asks him with many good things. 13 As it says in the Bible: ‘The Lord God will save everyone who asks him for help.’[d]
14 But people will never ask Christ to help them if they have not believed in him. And they will never believe in him if they have not heard about him. And they will not hear about him unless somebody tells God's message to them. 15 And nobody can go to tell God's message to people unless God sends them. This is written in the Bible: ‘When people arrive to tell us good news, we say “welcome!” ’[e]
16 But not every person who hears the good news obeys its message. Isaiah said this: ‘Lord God, it seems that nobody has believed our message.’[f] 17 So then, people must hear the message before they can trust God. And people hear that message when someone tells them about Christ.
18 Let me ask you this: ‘Did Israel's people hear that message?’ They certainly did! The Bible says:
‘People have spoken God's message everywhere.
People have heard his message in every part of the world.’[g]
19 So I ask this too: ‘When Israel's people heard God's message, did they understand it?’ First, think about what Moses wrote. God said to Israel's people:
‘I will make you jealous because of people who are not my people.
I will make you angry because of people who know nothing about me.’[h]
20 Also, this is what Isaiah said very bravely:
‘God says: Those people who were not looking for me have found me.
I showed myself to people who were not even asking about me.’[i]
21 But Isaiah says this about Israel's people:
‘God says: For a very long time,
I have been asking my people to return to me.
But they refused to obey me.
They turned against me.’[j]
Footnotes
- 10:5 See Leviticus 18:5.
- 10:8 See Deuteronomy 30:12-14.
- 10:11 See Isaiah 28:16.
- 10:13 See Joel 2:32.
- 10:15 See Isaiah 52:7.
- 10:16 See Isaiah 53:1.
- 10:18 See Psalms 19:4.
- 10:19 See Deuteronomy 32:21.
- 10:20 See Isaiah 65:1. Isaiah is speaking about the Gentiles. They were not waiting for Christ, God's Messiah, to come. They did not know anything about him. But because God is kind, he sent his good news to them.
- 10:21 See Isaiah 65:2. The Jews should have been waiting for Christ. The Old Testament told them that he would come. But when he came, they did not recognize him. See John 1:11.
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