Part of Book III📖 Psalms introduction
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1A contemplation by Asaph. Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth. ✦ 2I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, ✦ 3Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. ✦ 4We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done. ✦ 5For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; ✦ 6that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children, ✦ 7that they might set their hope in God, and not forget God’s deeds, but keep his commandments, ✦ 8and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God. ✦ 9The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. ✦ 10They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law. ✦ 11They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them. ✦ 12He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. ✦ 13He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap. ✦ 14In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire. ✦ 15He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths. ✦ 16He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers. ✦ 17Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert. ✦ 18They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire. ✦ 19Yes, they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? ✦ 20Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide meat for his people?” ✦ 21Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel, ✦ 22because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation. ✦ 23Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven. ✦ 24He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky. ✦ 25Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food to the full. ✦ 26He caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By his power he guided the south wind. ✦ 27He rained also meat on them as the dust; winged birds as the sand of the seas. ✦ 28He let them fall in the middle of their camp, around their habitations. 29So they ate, and were well filled. He gave them their own desire. ✦ 30They didn’t turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths, ✦ 31when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of their fattest, and struck down the young men of Israel. ✦ 32For all this they still sinned, and didn’t believe in his wondrous works. ✦ 33Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror. ✦ 34When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly. ✦ 35They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer. ✦ 36But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. ✦ 37For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant. ✦ 38But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn’t stir up all his wrath. ✦ 39He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again. ✦ 40How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert! ✦ 41They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel. ✦ 42They didn’t remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary; ✦ 43how he set his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan, ✦ 44he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink. ✦ 45He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. ✦ 46He gave also their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust. ✦ 47He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost. ✦ 48He gave over their livestock also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. ✦ 49He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil. ✦ 50He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence, ✦ 51and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham. ✦ 52But he led out his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. ✦ 53He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. ✦ 54He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken. ✦ 55He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. ✦ 56Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies; ✦ 57but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow. ✦ 58For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images. ✦ 59When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel; ✦ 60So that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men; ✦ 61and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary’s hand. ✦ 62He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance. ✦ 63Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song. ✦ 64Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn’t weep. ✦ 65Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine. ✦ 66He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach. ✦ 67Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim, ✦ 68But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved. ✦ 69He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever. ✦ 70He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; ✦ 71from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. ✦ 72So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands. ✦
Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.
Where this chapter connects
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 78 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
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Concise, theologically rich, and wonderfully accessible — the best place to start on the Psalms.
Pastoral
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.
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♪ Soundtrack
- 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) — Matt Redman, 2011Spotify ↗Apple ↗YouTube ↗
Blessing God for his goodness and faithfulness.
- His Eye Is on the Sparrow — Traditional, 1905Spotify ↗Apple ↗YouTube ↗
God's watchful care over every life.
- Total Praise — Richard Smallwood, 1996Spotify ↗Apple ↗YouTube ↗
Lifting eyes to the hills — God the source of strength (Psalm 121).