An instruction. Of Asaph.

78 Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

² I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter riddles from of old,

³ Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us:

⁴ We will not hide [them] from their sons, shewing forth to the generation to come the praises of Jehovah, and his strength, and his marvellous works which he hath done.

⁵ For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;

⁶ That the generation to come might know [them], the children that should be born; that they might rise up and tell [them] to their children,

⁷ And that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but observe his commandments;

⁸ And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that prepared not their heart, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.

⁹ The sons of Ephraim, armed bowmen, turned back in the day of battle.

¹⁰ They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;

¹¹ And forgot his doings, and his marvellous works which he had shewn them.

¹² In the sight of their fathers had he done wonders, in the land of Egypt, the field of Zoan.

¹³ He clave the sea, and caused them to pass through; and made the waters to stand as a heap;

¹⁴ And he led them with a cloud in the daytime, and all the night with the light of fire.

¹⁵ He clave rocks in the wilderness, and gave [them] drink as out of the depths, abundantly;

¹⁶ And he brought streams out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.

¹⁷ Yet they still went on sinning against him, provoking the Most High in the desert;

¹⁸ And they tempted God in their heart, by asking meat for their lust;

¹⁹ And they spoke against God: they said, Is God able to prepare a table in the wilderness?

²⁰ Behold, he smote the rock, and waters gushed out, and streams overflowed; is he able to give bread also, or provide flesh for his people?

²¹ Therefore Jehovah heard, and was wroth; and fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also went up against Israel:

²² Because they believed not in God, and confided not in his salvation;

²³ Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of the heavens,

²⁴ And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the corn of the heavens.

²⁵ Man did eat the bread of the mighty; he sent them provision to the full.

²⁶ He caused the east wind to rise in the heavens, and by his strength he brought the south wind;

²⁷ And he rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowl as the sand of the seas,

²⁸ And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations:

²⁹ And they did eat, and were well filled; for that they lusted after, he brought to them.

³⁰ They were not alienated from their lust, their meat was yet in their mouths,

³¹ When the anger of God went up against them; and he slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.

³² For all this, they sinned still, and believed not in his marvellous works;

³³ And he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.

³⁴ When he slew them, then they sought him, and returned and sought early after God;

³⁵ And they remembered that God was their rock, and God, the Most High, their redeemer.

³⁶ But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied unto him with their tongue;

³⁷ For their heart was not firm toward him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.

³⁸ But he was merciful: he forgave the iniquity, and destroyed [them] not; but many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his fury:

³⁹ And he remembered that they were flesh, a breath that passeth away and cometh not again.

⁴⁰ How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!

⁴¹ And they turned again and tempted God, and grieved the Holy One of Israel.

⁴² They remembered not his hand, the day when he delivered them from the oppressor,

⁴³ How he set his signs in Egypt, and his miracles in the field of Zoan;

⁴⁴ And turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, that they could not drink;

⁴⁵ He sent dog-flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them;

⁴⁶ And he gave their increase unto the caterpillar, and their labour unto the locust;

⁴⁷ He killed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with hail-stones;

⁴⁸ And he delivered up their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to thunderbolts.

⁴⁹ He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and distress,—a mission of angels of woes.

⁵⁰ He made a way for his anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence;

⁵¹ And he smote all the firstborn in Egypt, the first-fruits of their vigour in the tents of Ham.

⁵² And he made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock;

⁵³ And he led them safely, so that they were without fear; and the sea covered their enemies.

⁵⁴ And he brought them to his holy border, this mountain, which his right hand purchased;

⁵⁵ And he drove out the nations before them, and allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.

⁵⁶ But they tempted and provoked God, the Most High, and kept not his testimonies,

⁵⁷ And they drew back and dealt treacherously like their fathers: they turned like a deceitful bow.

⁵⁸ And they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

⁵⁹ God heard, and was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel:

⁶⁰ And he forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where he had dwelt among men,

⁶¹ And gave his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor;

⁶² And delivered up his people unto the sword, and was very wroth with his inheritance:

⁶³ The fire consumed their young men, and their maidens were not praised in [nuptial] song;

⁶⁴ Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.

⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep, like a mighty man that shouteth aloud by reason of wine;

⁶⁶ And he smote his adversaries in the hinder part, and put them to everlasting reproach.

⁶⁷ And he rejected the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim,

⁶⁸ But chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved;

⁶⁹ And he built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he hath founded for ever.

⁷⁰ And he chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds:

⁷¹ From following the suckling-ewes, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.

⁷² And he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and led them by the skilfulness of his hands.