Psalm 78:40-72

Amplified Bible

⁴⁰ 
How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness
And grieved Him in the desert!
⁴¹ 
Again and again they tempted God,
And distressed the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² 
They did not remember [the miracles worked by] His [powerful] hand,
Nor the day when He redeemed them from the enemy,
⁴³ 
How He worked His miracles in Egypt
And His wonders in the field of Zoan [where Pharaoh resided],
⁴⁴ 
And turned their rivers into blood,
And their streams, so that they could not drink.
⁴⁵ 
He sent among them swarms of flies which devoured them,
And frogs which destroyed them.
⁴⁶ 
He also gave their crops to the grasshopper,
And the fruit of their labor to the locust.
⁴⁷ 
He destroyed their vines with [great] hailstones
And their sycamore trees with frost.
⁴⁸ 
He gave over their cattle also to the hailstones,
And their flocks and herds to thunderbolts.^(A)
49 
He sent upon them His burning anger,^(B)
His fury and indignation and distress,
A band of angels of destruction [among them].
⁵⁰ 
He leveled a path for His anger [to give it free run];
He did not spare their souls from death,
But turned over their lives to the plague.
⁵¹ 
He killed all the firstborn in Egypt,
The first and best of their strength in the tents [of the land of the sons] of Ham.
⁵² 
But God led His own people forward like sheep
And guided them in the wilderness like [a good shepherd with] a flock.
⁵³ 
He led them safely, so that they did not fear;
But the sea engulfed their enemies.^(C)

⁵⁴ 
So He brought them to His holy land,
To this mountain [Zion] which His right hand had acquired.
⁵⁵ 
He also drove out the nations before the sons of Israel
And allotted their land as an inheritance, measured out and partitioned;
And He had the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents [the tents of those who had been dispossessed].
⁵⁶ 
Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God
And did not keep His testimonies (laws).
⁵⁷ 
They turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers;
They were twisted like a warped bow [that will not respond to the archer’s aim].
⁵⁸ 
For they provoked Him to [righteous] anger with their high places [devoted to idol worship]
And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images [by denying Him the love, worship, and obedience that is rightfully and uniquely His].
⁵⁹ 
When God heard this, He was filled with [righteous] wrath;
And utterly rejected Israel, [greatly hating her ways],
⁶⁰ 
So that He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,
The tent in which He had dwelled among men,
⁶¹ 
And gave up His strength and power (the ark of the covenant) into captivity,
And His glory into the hand of the enemy (the Philistines).^(D)
62 
He also handed His people over to the sword,
And was infuriated with His inheritance (Israel).^(E)
63 
The fire [of war] devoured His young men,
And His [bereaved] virgins had no wedding songs.
⁶⁴ 
His priests [Hophni and Phinehas] fell by the sword,
And His widows could not weep.^(F)

⁶⁵ 
Then the Lord awakened as from sleep,
Like a [mighty] warrior who awakens from the sleep of wine [fully conscious of his power].
⁶⁶ 
He drove His enemies backward;
He subjected them to lasting shame and dishonor.
⁶⁷ 
Moreover, He rejected the tent of Joseph,
And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim [in which the tabernacle stood].
⁶⁸ 
But He chose the tribe of Judah [as Israel’s leader],
Mount Zion, which He loved [to replace Shiloh as His capital].
⁶⁹ 
And He built His sanctuary [exalted] like the heights [of the heavens],
Like the earth which He has established forever.
⁷⁰ 
He also chose David His servant
And took him from the sheepfolds;^(G)
71 
[a]From ^[b]tending the ewes with nursing young He brought him
To shepherd Jacob His people,
And Israel His inheritance.^(H)
72 
So David shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart;
And guided them with his skillful hands.