# Psalm 78

> Lumin Translation

Source: https://www.lumin.faith/read/psalm/78

Lumin’s own translation, drafted with AI from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, checked verse by verse against them, and approved by Lumin. Brackets mark verses not found in the earliest manuscripts.

How it was made: https://www.lumin.faith/lumin-translation.md

*A maskil of Asaph.*

1. Listen, my people, to my teaching; turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
2. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will pour out riddles from long ago,
3. things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us.
4. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praises of Yahweh, his strength, and the wonders he has done.
5. He established a testimony in Jacob and set a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children,
6. so that the next generation would know them, children yet to be born, and they in turn would rise and tell their children,
7. so that they would put their confidence in God and not forget the deeds of God, but keep his commandments,
8. and not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9. The men of Ephraim, armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle.
10. They did not keep God’s covenant, and they refused to walk in his law.
11. They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them.
12. In the sight of their ancestors he did wonders in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
13. He split the sea and led them through; he made the waters stand up like a heap.
14. He led them with the cloud by day, and all night long with the light of fire.
15. He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the depths.
16. He brought streams out of the rock and made water flow down like rivers.
17. Yet they went on sinning against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18. They tested God in their hearts by demanding the food they craved.
19. They spoke against God; they said, “Can God set a table in the wilderness?
20. True, he struck the rock and water gushed out and streams overflowed, but can he also give bread or provide meat for his people?”
21. So when Yahweh heard, he was furious; a fire was kindled against Jacob, and his anger rose against Israel,
22. because they did not believe in God or trust in his salvation.
23. Yet he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven;
24. he rained down manna on them to eat and gave them the grain of heaven.
25. Each one ate the bread of the mighty; he sent them food in abundance.
26. He stirred up the east wind in the heavens and drove the south wind by his power.
27. He rained meat on them like dust, winged birds like the sand of the seas.
28. He made them fall in the middle of their camp, all around their tents.
29. They ate and were well filled, for he gave them what they craved.
30. But before they had turned from their craving, while the food was still in their mouths,
31. the anger of God rose against them; he killed the strongest of them and struck down the young men of Israel.
32. In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; they did not believe in his wonders.
33. So he made their days vanish like a breath and their years in sudden terror.
34. Whenever he killed some of them, the rest would seek him; they would turn back and look eagerly for God.
35. They remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their redeemer.
36. But they flattered him with their mouths and lied to him with their tongues;
37. their hearts were not steadfast toward him, and they were not faithful to his covenant.
38. Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their guilt and did not destroy them; time after time he turned back his anger and did not stir up all his wrath.
39. He remembered that they were only flesh, a breath that passes and does not return.
40. How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert!
41. Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42. They did not remember his power, the day he redeemed them from the foe,
43. when he performed his signs in Egypt and his wonders in the region of Zoan.
44. He turned their rivers into blood, so that they could not drink from their streams.
45. He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs, which ruined them.
46. He gave their crops to the grasshopper and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
47. He killed their vines with hail and their sycamore trees with frost.
48. He gave over their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.
49. He unleashed on them his burning anger, fury, indignation, and distress, a band of destroying angels.
50. He cleared a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death but gave their lives over to the plague.
51. He struck down every firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52. Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.
53. He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid, but the sea covered their enemies.
54. He brought them to his holy territory, to the mountain his right hand had acquired.
55. He drove out nations before them; he allotted their lands as an inheritance by measuring line, and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
56. Yet they tested and rebelled against God Most High and did not keep his testimonies.
57. They turned away and were faithless like their ancestors; they twisted like a faulty bow.
58. They provoked him to anger with their high places and moved him to jealousy with their idols.
59. When God heard, he was furious, and he utterly rejected Israel.
60. He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent he had set up among people.
61. He gave his strength into captivity, his splendor into the hand of the foe.
62. He handed his people over to the sword and was furious with his inheritance.
63. Fire consumed their young men, and their young women had no wedding songs.
64. Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows could not weep.
65. Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a warrior shouting because of wine.
66. He beat back his foes; he put them to everlasting shame.
67. He rejected the tent of Joseph and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
68. but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves.
69. He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth, which he established forever.
70. He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens;
71. from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance.
72. He shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.

## Nearby chapters

[Psalm 77](https://www.lumin.faith/read/psalm/77.md)
[Psalm 79](https://www.lumin.faith/read/psalm/79.md)

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