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78:1  A maskil of Asaf: Listen, my people, to my teaching; turn your ears to the words from my mouth.
78:2  I will speak to you in parables and explain mysteries from days of old.
78:3  The things which we have heard and known, and which our fathers told us
78:4  we will not hide from their descendants; we will tell the generation to come the praises of Adonai and his strength, the wonders that he has performed.
78:5  He raised up a testimony in Ya‘akov and established a Torah in Isra’el. He commanded our ancestors to make this known to their children,
78:6  so that the next generation would know it, the children not yet born, who would themselves arise and tell their own children,
78:7  who could then put their confidence in God, not forgetting God’s deeds, but obeying his mitzvot.
78:8  Then they would not be like their ancestors, a stubborn, rebellious generation, a generation with unprepared hearts, with spirits unfaithful to God.
78:9  The people of Efrayim, though armed with bows and arrows, turned their backs on the day of battle.
78:10  They did not keep the covenant of God and refused to live by his Torah.
78:11  They forgot what he had done, his wonders which he had shown them.
78:12  He had done wonderful things in the presence of their ancestors in the land of Egypt, in the region of Tzo‘an.
78:13  He split the sea and made them pass through, he made the waters stand up like a wall.
78:14  He also led them by day with a cloud and all night long with light from a fire.
78:15  He broke apart the rocks in the desert and let them drink as if from boundless depths;
78:16  yes, he brought streams out of the rock, making the water flow down like rivers.
78:17  Yet they sinned still more against him, rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High;
78:18  in their hearts they tested God by demanding food that would satisfy their cravings.
78:19  Yes, they spoke against God by asking, “Can God spread a table in the desert?
78:20  True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out, until the vadis overflowed; but what about bread? Can he give that? Can he provide meat for his people?”
78:21  Therefore, when Adonai heard, he was angry; fire blazed up against Ya‘akov; his anger mounted against Isra’el;
78:22  because they had no faith in God, no trust in his power to save.
78:23  So he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven.
78:24  He rained down man on them as food; he gave them grain from heaven —
78:25  mortals ate the bread of angels; he provided for them to the full.
78:26  He stirred up the east wind in heaven, brought on the south wind by his power,
78:27  and rained down meat on them like dust, birds flying thick as the sand on the seashore.
78:28  He let them fall in the middle of their camp, all around their tents.
78:29  So they ate till they were satisfied; he gave them what they craved.
78:30  They were still fulfilling their craving, the food was still in their mouths,
78:31  when the anger of God rose up against them and slaughtered their strongest men, laying low the young men of Isra’el.
78:32  Still, they kept on sinning and put no faith in his wonders.
78:33  Therefore, he ended their days in futility and their years in terror.
78:34  When he brought death among them, they would seek him; they would repent and seek God eagerly,
78:35  remembering that God was their Rock, El ‘Elyon their Redeemer.
78:36  But they tried to deceive him with their words, they lied to him with their tongues;
78:37  for their hearts were not right with him, and they were unfaithful to his covenant.
78:38  Yet he, because he is full of compassion, forgave their sin and did not destroy; many times he turned away his anger and didn’t rouse all his wrath.
78:39  So he remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that blows past and does not return.
78:40  How often they rebelled against him in the desert and grieved him in the wastelands!
78:41  Repeatedly they challenged God and pained the Holy One of Isra’el.
78:42  They didn’t remember how he used his hand on the day he redeemed them from their enemy,
78:43  how he displayed his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the region of Tzo‘an.
78:44  He turned their rivers into blood, so they couldn’t drink from their streams.
78:45  He sent swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them.
78:46  He gave their harvest to shearer-worms, the fruit of their labor to locusts.
78:47  He destroyed their vineyards with hail and their sycamore-figs with frost.
78:48  Their cattle too he gave over to the hail and their flocks to lightning bolts.
78:49  He sent over them his fierce anger, fury, indignation and trouble, with a company of destroying angels
78:50  to clear a path for his wrath. He did not spare them from death, but gave them over to the plague,
78:51  striking all the firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
78:52  But his own people he led out like sheep, guiding them like a flock in the desert.
78:53  He led them safely, and they weren’t afraid, even when the sea overwhelmed their foes.
78:54  He brought them to his holy land, to the hill-country won by his right hand.
78:55  He expelled nations before them, apportioned them property to inherit and made Isra’el’s tribes live in their tents.
78:56  Yet they tested El ‘Elyon and rebelled against him, refusing to obey his instructions.
78:57  They turned away and were faithless, like their fathers; they were unreliable, like a bow without tension.
78:58  They provoked him with their high places and made him jealous with their idols.
78:59  God heard, and he was angry; he came to detest Isra’el completely.
78:60  He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent he had made where he could live among people.
78:61  He gave his strength into exile, his pride to the power of the foe.
78:62  He gave his people over to the sword and grew angry with his own heritage.
78:63  Fire consumed their young men, their virgins had no wedding-song,
78:64  their cohanim fell by the sword, and their widows could not weep.
78:65  Then Adonai awoke, as if from sleep, like a warrior shouting for joy from wine.
78:66  He struck his foes, driving them back and putting them to perpetual shame.
78:67  Rejecting the tents of Yosef and passing over the tribe of Efrayim,
78:68  he chose the tribe of Y’hudah, Mount Tziyon, which he loved.
78:69  He built his sanctuary like the heights; like the earth, he made it to last forever.
78:70  He chose David to be his servant, taking him from the sheep-yards;
78:71  from tending nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Ya‘akov his people, Isra’el his heritage.
78:72  With upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with skillful hands.