Psalms 78:14-72
He led them with a cloud by day and with a fiery light throughout the night.He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the depths.He brought streams out of the stone and made water flow down like rivers.But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.They deliberately tested God, demanding the food they craved.They spoke against God, saying,“ Is God able to provide food in the wilderness?Look! He struck the rock and water gushed out; torrents overflowed. But can He also provide bread or furnish meat for His people?”Therefore, the Lord heard and became furious; then fire broke out against Jacob, and anger flared up against Israelbecause they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.He gave a command to the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven.He rained manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.People ate the bread of angels. He sent them an abundant supply of food.He made the east wind blow in the skies and drove the south wind by His might.He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the seas.He made them fall in His camp, all around His tent.They ate and were completely satisfied, for He gave them what they craved.Before they had satisfied their desire, while the food was still in their mouths,God’s anger flared up against them, and He killed some of their best men. He struck down Israel’s choice young men.Despite all this, they kept sinning and did not believe His wonderful works.He made their days end in futility, their years in sudden disaster.When He killed some of them, the rest began to seek Him; they repented and searched for God.They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their Redeemer.But they deceived Him with their mouths, they lied to Him with their tongues,their hearts were insincere toward Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.Yet He was compassionate; He atoned for their guilt and did not destroy them. He often turned His anger aside and did not unleash all His wrath.He remembered that they were only flesh, a wind that passes and does not return.How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert.They constantly tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.They did not remember His power shown on the day He redeemed them from the foe,when He performed His miraculous signs in Egypt and His wonders in the region of Zoan.He turned their rivers into blood, and they could not drink from their streams.He sent among them swarms of flies, which fed on them, and frogs, which devastated them.He gave their crops to the caterpillar and the fruit of their labor to the locust.He killed their vines with hail and their sycamore fig trees with a flood.He handed over their livestock to hail and their cattle to lightning bolts.He sent His burning anger against them: fury, indignation, and calamity— a band of deadly messengers.He cleared a path for His anger. He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.He struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the first progeny of the tents of Ham.He led His people out like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.He led them safely, and they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies.He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand acquired.He drove out nations before them. He apportioned their inheritance by lot and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.But they rebelliously tested the Most High God, for they did not keep His decrees.They treacherously turned away like their fathers; they became warped like a faulty bow.They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their carved images.God heard and became furious; He completely rejected Israel.He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where He resided among men.He gave up His strength to captivity and His splendor to the hand of a foe.He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged with His heritage.Fire consumed His chosen young men, and His young women had no wedding songs.His priests fell by the sword, but the widows could not lament.Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, like a warrior from the effects of wine.He beat back His foes; He gave them lasting shame.He rejected the tent of Joseph and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.He chose instead the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that He established forever.He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;He brought him from tending ewes to be shepherd over His people Jacob— over Israel, His inheritance.He shepherded them with a pure heart and guided them with his skillful hands.
Psalms 106:12-48
Then they believed His promises and sang His praise.They soon forgot His works and would not wait for His counsel.They were seized with craving in the wilderness and tested God in the desert.He gave them what they asked for, but sent a wasting disease among them.In the camp they were envious of Moses and of Aaron, the Lord’s holy one.The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan; it covered the assembly of Abiram.Fire blazed throughout their assembly; flames consumed the wicked.At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped the cast metal image.They exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt,wonderful works in the land of Ham, awe-inspiring acts at the Red Sea.So He said He would have destroyed them— if Moses His chosen one had not stood before Him in the breach to turn His wrath away from destroying them.They despised the pleasant land and did not believe His promise.They grumbled in their tents and did not listen to the Lord’s voice.So He raised His hand against them with an oath that He would make them fall in the desertand would disperse their descendants among the nations, scattering them throughout the lands.They aligned themselves with Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods.They provoked the Lord with their deeds, and a plague broke out against them.But Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stopped.It was credited to him as righteousness throughout all generations to come.They angered the Lord at the waters of Meribah, and Moses suffered because of them;for they embittered his spirit, and he spoke rashly with his lips.They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord had commanded thembut mingled with the nations and adopted their ways.They served their idols, which became a snare to them.They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.They shed innocent blood— the blood of their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; so the land became polluted with blood.They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance.He handed them over to the nations; those who hated them ruled them.Their enemies oppressed them, and they were subdued under their power.He rescued them many times, but they continued to rebel deliberately and were beaten down by their sin.When He heard their cry, He took note of their distress,remembered His covenant with them, and relented according to the riches of His faithful love.He caused them to be pitied before all their captors.Save us, Yahweh our God, and gather us from the nations, so that we may give thanks to Your holy name and rejoice in Your praise.May Yahweh, the God of Israel, be praised from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say,“ Amen!” Hallelujah!
