Home Prior Books Index
←Prev   Psalms 78 as rendered by/in  Next→ 

Did you notice?
 You can SEARCH IslamAwakened: 

78:1  O my people, listen to my teaching. Open your ears to what I am saying.
78:2  For I will show you lessons from our history, stories handed down to us from former generations.
78:3  For I will show you lessons from our history, stories handed down to us from former generations.
78:4  I will reveal these truths to you so that you can describe these glorious deeds of Jehovah to your children and tell them about the mighty miracles he did.
78:5  For he gave his laws to Israel and commanded our fathers to teach them to their children,
78:6  so that they in turn could teach their children too. Thus his laws pass down from generation to generation.
78:7  In this way each generation has been able to obey his laws and to set its hope anew on God and not forget his glorious miracles.
78:8  Thus they did not need to be as their fathers were—stubborn, rebellious, unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.
78:9  The people of Ephraim, though fully armed, turned their backs and fled when the day of battle came
78:10  because they didn’t obey his laws. They refused to follow his ways.
78:11  And they forgot about the wonderful miracles God had done for them and for their fathers in Egypt.
78:12  And they forgot about the wonderful miracles God had done for them and for their fathers in Egypt.
78:13  For he divided the sea before them and led them through! The water stood banked up along both sides of them!
78:14  In the daytime he led them by a cloud, and at night by a pillar of fire.
78:15  He split open the rocks in the wilderness to give them plenty of water, as though gushing from a spring.
78:16  Streams poured from the rock, flowing like a river!
78:17  Yet they kept on with their rebellion, sinning against the God who is above all gods.
78:18  They murmured and complained, demanding other food than God was giving them.
78:19  They even spoke against God himself. “Why can’t he give us decent food as well as water?” they grumbled.
78:20  They even spoke against God himself. “Why can’t he give us decent food as well as water?” they grumbled.
78:21  Jehovah heard them and was angry; the fire of his wrath burned against Israel
78:22  because they didn’t believe in God or trust in him to care for them,
78:23  even though he commanded the skies to open—he opened the windows of heaven—
78:24  and rained down manna for their food. He gave them bread from heaven!
78:25  They ate angels’ food! He gave them all they could hold.
78:26  And he led forth the east wind and guided the south wind by his mighty power.
78:27  He rained down birds as thick as dust, clouds of them like sands along the shore!
78:28  He caused the birds to fall to the ground among the tents.
78:29  The people ate their fill. He gave them what they asked for.
78:30  But they had hardly finished eating, and the meat was yet in their mouths,
78:31  when the anger of the Lord rose against them and killed the finest of Israel’s young men.
78:32  Yet even so the people kept on sinning and refused to believe in miracles.
78:33  So he cut their lives short and gave them years of terror and disaster.
78:34  Then at last, when he had ruined them, they walked awhile behind him; how earnestly they turned around and followed him!
78:35  Then they remembered that God was their Rock—that their Savior was the God above all gods.
78:36  But it was only with their words that they followed him, not with their hearts;
78:37  their hearts were far away. They did not keep their promises.
78:38  Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and didn’t destroy them all. Many and many a time he held back his anger.
78:39  For he remembered that they were merely mortal men, gone in a moment like a breath of wind.
78:40  Oh, how often they rebelled against him in those desert years and grieved his heart.
78:41  Again and again they turned away and tempted God to kill them, and limited the Holy One of Israel from giving them his blessings.
78:42  They forgot his power and love and how he had rescued them from their enemies;
78:43  they forgot the plagues he sent upon the Egyptians in Tanis—
78:44  how he turned their rivers into blood so that no one could drink,
78:45  how he sent vast swarms of flies to fill the land, and how the frogs had covered all of Egypt!
78:46  He gave their crops to caterpillars. Their harvest was consumed by locusts.
78:47  He destroyed their grapevines and their sycamores with hail.
78:48  Their cattle died in the fields, mortally wounded by huge hailstones from heaven. Their sheep were killed by lightning.
78:49  He loosed on them the fierceness of his anger, sending sorrow and trouble. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels.
78:50  He gave free course to his anger and did not spare the Egyptians’ lives, but handed them over to plagues and sickness.
78:51  Then he killed the eldest son in each Egyptian family—he who was the beginning of its strength and joy.
78:52  But he led forth his own people like a flock, guiding them safely through the wilderness.
78:53  He kept them safe, so they were not afraid. But the sea closed in upon their enemies and overwhelmed them.
78:54  He brought them to the border of his land of blessing, to this land of hills he made for them.
78:55  He drove out the nations occupying the land and gave each tribe of Israel its apportioned place as its home.
78:56  Yet though he did all this for them, they still rebelled against the God above all gods and refused to follow his commands.
78:57  They turned back from entering the Promised Land and disobeyed as their fathers had. Like a crooked arrow, they missed the target of God’s will.
78:58  They made him angry by erecting idols and altars to other gods.
78:59  When God saw their deeds, his wrath was strong and he despised his people.
78:60  Then he abandoned his Tabernacle at Shiloh, where he had lived among mankind,
78:61  and allowed his Ark to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands.
78:62  He caused his people to be butchered because his anger was intense.
78:63  Their young men were killed by fire, and their girls died before they were old enough to sing their wedding songs.
78:64  The priests were slaughtered, and their widows died before they could even begin their lament.
78:65  Then the Lord rose up as though awakening from sleep, and like a mighty man aroused by wine,
78:66  he routed his enemies; he drove them back and sent them to eternal shame.
78:67  But he rejected Joseph’s family, the tribe of Ephraim,
78:68  and chose the tribe of Judah—and Mount Zion, which he loved.
78:69  There he built his towering temple, solid and enduring as the heavens and the earth.
78:70  He chose his servant David, taking him from feeding sheep
78:71  and from following the ewes with lambs; God presented David to his people as their shepherd, and he cared for them with a true heart and skillful hands.
78:72  and from following the ewes with lambs; God presented David to his people as their shepherd, and he cared for them with a true heart and skillful hands.