Psalms 78 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Pay attention, my people, to what I'm you — lean in and listen to every word I speak.
I'm going to open my mouth with a — I'll unravel that go all the way back to the beginning.
Things we've heard and known — things our parents told us.
We won't hide them from our children. We'll tell the next generation about Yahweh's and the he's done.
He set up a in Jacob and laid down in Israel — he commanded our ancestors to teach these things to their children,
so that the next generation would know them — children not yet born — and they in turn would rise up and tell their own children.
Then they would put their in God and not forget what he'd done — they would guard his commands,
and not become like their ancestors — a and rebellious generation, a generation that its whose spirit was faithful to God.
The men of — armed with bows, ready for battle — turned and ran on the day of the fight.
They didn't keep God's They refused to walk by his instruction.
They forgot what he had done — the stunning things he'd shown them.
Right in front of their ancestors, he did the unthinkable — in the land of Egypt, in the fields of
He the and brought them through — he made the water stand up like walls.
He guided them with a by day and with the glow of fire all night long.
He rocks in the wilderness and gave them water as as the to drink.
He drew streams from solid rock and made water pour down like rivers.
But they kept on — rebelling against the Most in the waterless land.
They deliberately God, demanding food to satisfy their cravings.
They spoke against God and said, "Can God really a for us out here in the wilderness?"
"Sure, he struck the rock and water gushed out — streams flooded everywhere. But can he give us bread too? Can he provide meat for his people?"
When Yahweh heard this, he with Fire blazed against Jacob, and fury rose against Israel,
because they didn't believe in God — they didn't trust him to them.
Yet he gave orders to the skies above and threw open the of
He rained down for them to eat — he gave them grain from heaven.
Mere humans ate the of the — he sent them food until they were stuffed.
He unleashed the east wind from the skies and drove the south wind by his power.
He rained down meat on them like dust — birds like sand on the seashore.
He let them fall right in the middle of their camp, all around their tents.
They ate and gorged themselves — he gave them exactly what they
But before they'd even finished — while the food was still in their mouths —
God's anger surged against them. He struck down their and brought Israel's to their knees.
Even after all of this, they kept on failing him — they didn't believe despite all his stunning acts.
So he made their days a and their years dissolve in sudden terror.
Whenever he struck them down, then they came looking for him — they turned back and searched desperately for God.
They remembered that God was their that the Most High God was the one who them
But they just flattered him with their mouths — they lied to him with their tongues.
Their hearts weren't to him — they weren't faithful to his covenant.
But he — full of — covered their wrongs and didn't destroy them. Time after time he pulled back his anger and didn't unleash all his fury.
He remembered they were just — a wind that blows past and doesn't come back.
How many times did they rebel against him in the wilderness — how many times did they him in that wasteland!
Again and again they tested God — they the in
They didn't remember his — the day he rescued them from the enemy,
when he unleashed his in Egypt and his stunning acts in the fields of Zoan.
He turned their rivers to blood — they couldn't drink from their own streams.
He sent swarms of flies that devoured them and frogs that devastated them.
He gave their crops to the grasshopper and their labor to the
He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamore trees with frost.
He handed their cattle over to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.
He unleashed his burning anger on them — fury, rage, and devastation — a squadron of
He cleared a path for his anger — he didn't spare them from death. He handed their lives over to the