Psalms 76-78

1God is known in Judah; His name is great in Israel.

2His tent is in Salem, His dwelling place in Zion.

3There He shattered the flaming arrows, the shield and sword and weapons of war. Selah

4You are resplendent with light, more majestic than mountains filled with game.

5The valiant lie plundered; they sleep their last sleep. No men of might could lift a hand.

6At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both horse and rider lie stunned.

7You alone are to be feared. When You are angry, who can stand before You?

8From heaven You pronounced judgment, and the earth feared and was still

9when God rose up to judge, to save all the lowly of the earth. Selah

10Even the wrath of man shall praise You; with the survivors of wrath You will clothe Yourself.

11Make and fulfill your vows to the LORD your God; let all the neighboring lands bring tribute to Him who is to be feared.

12He breaks the spirits of princes; He is feared by the kings of the earth.

1I cried out to God; I cried aloud to God to hear me.

2In the day of trouble I sought the Lord; through the night my outstretched hands did not grow weary; my soul refused to be comforted.

3I remembered You, O God, and I groaned; I mused and my spirit grew faint. Selah

4You have kept my eyes from closing; I am too troubled to speak.

5I considered the days of old, the years long in the past.

6At night I remembered my song; in my heart I mused, and my spirit pondered:

7“Will the Lord spurn us forever and never show His favor again?

8Is His loving devotion gone forever? Has His promise failed for all time?

9Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has His anger shut off His compassion?” Selah

10So I said, “I am grieved that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”

11I will remember the works of the LORD; yes, I will remember Your wonders of old.

12I will reflect on all You have done and ponder Your mighty deeds.

13Your way, O God, is holy. What god is so great as our God?

14You are the God who works wonders; You display Your strength among the peoples.

15With power You redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah

16The waters saw You, O God; the waters saw You and swirled; even the depths were shaken.

17The clouds poured down water; the skies resounded with thunder; Your arrows flashed back and forth.

18Your thunder resounded in the whirlwind; the lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked.

19Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, but Your footprints were not to be found.

20You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

1Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.

2I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

3that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.

4We will not hide them from their children but will declare to the next generation the praises of the LORD and His might and the wonders He has performed.

5For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,

6that the coming generation would know them— even children yet to be born— to arise and tell their own children

7that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.

8Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.

10They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.

11They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

12He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

13He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

14He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

15He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

16He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.

17But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

18They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

19They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

20When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”

21Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,

22because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

23Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.

24He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.

25Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.

26He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.

27He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

28He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

29So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

30Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

31God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

32In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

33So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.

34When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

35And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

36But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.

37Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

38And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.

39He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

40How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

41Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

42They did not remember His power — the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

43when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

44He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.

45He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

46He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.

47He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

48He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

49He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity— a band of destroying angels.

50He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.

51He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.

52He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

53He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.

54He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

55He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

56But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.

57They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

58They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

59On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

60He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.

61He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

62He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

63Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

64His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

65Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

66He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.

67He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

68But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.

69He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.

70He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;

71from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.

72So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.