Psalm 78:40-72

Christian Standard Bible

⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him
in the wilderness
and grieved him in the desert.
⁴¹ They constantly tested God^(A)
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.^(B)
42 They did not remember his power shown
on the day he redeemed them from the foe,^(C)
43 when he performed his miraculous signs in Egypt
and his wonders in the territory of Zoan.^(D)
44 He turned their rivers into blood,
and they could not drink from their streams.^(E)
45 He sent among them swarms of flies,^(F)
which fed on them,
and frogs, which devastated them.^(G)
46 He gave their crops to the caterpillar
and the fruit of their labor to the locust.^(H)
47 He killed their vines with hail
and their sycamore fig trees with a flood.
⁴⁸ He handed over their livestock to hail
and their cattle to lightning bolts.^(I)
49 He sent his burning anger against them:
fury, indignation, and calamity—
a band of deadly messengers.^[a](J)
50 He cleared a path for his anger.
He did not spare them from death
but delivered their lives to the plague.^(K)
51 He struck all the firstborn^(L) in Egypt,
the first progeny of the tents of Ham.^(M)
52 He led his people out like sheep
and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.^(N)
53 He led them safely, and they were not afraid;
but the sea covered their enemies.^(O)
54 He brought them to his holy territory,
to the mountain his right hand acquired.^(P)
55 He drove out nations before them.^(Q)
He apportioned their inheritance by lot
and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.^(R)

⁵⁶ But they rebelliously tested the Most High God,
for they did not keep his decrees.^(S)
57 They treacherously turned away like their ancestors;
they became warped like a faulty bow.^(T)
58 They enraged him with their high places
and provoked his jealousy with their carved images.^(U)
59 God heard and became furious;
he completely rejected Israel.^(V)
60 He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,
the tent where he resided among mankind.^(W)
61 He gave up his strength to captivity
and his splendor to the hand of a foe.^(X)
62 He surrendered his people to the sword
because he was enraged with his heritage.^(Y)
63 Fire consumed his chosen young men,
and his young women had no wedding songs.^[b](Z)
64 His priests fell by the sword,
and the widows could not lament.^(AA)

⁶⁵ The Lord awoke as if from sleep,
like a warrior from the effects of wine.^(AB)
66 He beat back his foes;
he gave them lasting disgrace.^(AC)
67 He rejected the tent of Joseph
and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
⁶⁸ He chose instead the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loved.^(AD)
69 He built his sanctuary like the heights,
like the earth that he established forever.^(AE)
70 He chose David his servant
and took him from the sheep pens;^(AF)
71 he brought him from tending ewes
to be shepherd over his people Jacob—
over Israel, his inheritance.^(AG)
72 He shepherded them with a pure heart
and guided them with his skillful hands.^(AH)