Refuse To Be Defeated – 1/31

Psalm 78:1–72 (CSB)

¹ My people, hear my instruction;
listen to the words from my mouth.
² I will declare wise sayings;
I will speak mysteries from the past—

³ things we have heard and known
and that our ancestors have passed down to us.
⁴ We will not hide them from their children,
but will tell a future generation
the praiseworthy acts of the Lord,
his might, and the wondrous works
he has performed.

⁵ He established a testimony in Jacob
and set up a law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach to their children
⁶ so that a future generation—
children yet to be born—might know.
They were to rise and tell their children
⁷ so that they might put their confidence in God
and not forget God’s works,
but keep his commands.

⁸ Then they would not be like their ancestors,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not loyal
and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
⁹ The Ephraimite archers turned back
on the day of battle.
¹⁰ They did not keep God’s covenant
and refused to live by his law.
¹¹ They forgot what he had done,
the wondrous works he had shown them.

¹² He worked wonders in the sight of their ancestors
in the land of Egypt, the territory of Zoan.
¹³ He split the sea and brought them across;
the water stood firm like a wall.

¹⁴ He led them with a cloud by day
and with a fiery light throughout the night.
¹⁵ He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink as abundant as the depths.
¹⁶ He brought streams out of the stone
and made water flow down like rivers.
¹⁷ But they continued to sin against him,
rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

¹⁸ They deliberately tested God,
demanding the food they craved.
¹⁹ They spoke against God, saying,
“Is God able to provide food in the wilderness?
²⁰ Look! He struck the rock and water gushed out;
torrents overflowed.
But can he also provide bread
or furnish meat for his people?”
²¹ Therefore, the Lord heard and became furious;
then fire broke out against Jacob,
and anger flared up against Israel
²² because they did not believe God
or rely on his salvation.

²³ He gave a command to the clouds above
and opened the doors of heaven.
²⁴ He rained manna for them to eat;
he gave them grain from heaven.
²⁵ People ate the bread of angels.
He sent them an abundant supply of food.
²⁶ He made the east wind blow in the skies
and drove the south wind by his might.
²⁷ He rained meat on them like dust,
and winged birds like the sand of the seas.
²⁸ He made them fall in the camp,
all around the tents.
²⁹ The people ate and were completely satisfied,
for he gave them what they craved.
³⁰ Before they had turned from what they craved,
while the food was still in their mouths,
³¹ God’s anger flared up against them,
and he killed some of their best men.
He struck down Israel’s fit young men.
³² Despite all this, they kept sinning
and did not believe his wondrous works.
³³ He made their days end in futility,
their years in sudden disaster.

³⁴ When he killed some of them,
the rest began to seek him;
they repented and searched for God.
³⁵ They remembered that God was their rock,
the Most High God, their Redeemer.
³⁶ But they deceived him with their mouths,
they lied to him with their tongues,
³⁷ their hearts were insincere toward him,
and they were unfaithful to his covenant.

³⁸ Yet he was compassionate;
he atoned for their iniquity
and did not destroy them.
He often turned his anger aside
and did not unleash all his wrath.
³⁹ He remembered that they were only flesh,
a wind that passes and does not return.
⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him
in the wilderness
and grieved him in the desert.

⁴¹ They constantly tested God
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They did not remember his power shown
on the day he redeemed them from the foe,
⁴³ when he performed his miraculous signs in Egypt
and his wonders in the territory of Zoan.
⁴⁴ He turned their rivers into blood,
and they could not drink from their streams.
⁴⁵ He sent among them swarms of flies,
which fed on them,
and frogs, which devastated them.
⁴⁶ He gave their crops to the caterpillar
and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
⁴⁷ He killed their vines with hail
and their sycamore fig trees with a flood.
⁴⁸ He handed over their livestock to hail
and their cattle to lightning bolts.
⁴⁹ He sent his burning anger against them:
fury, indignation, and calamity—
a band of deadly messengers.^,
50 He cleared a path for his anger.
He did not spare them from death
but delivered their lives to the plague.
⁵¹ He struck all the firstborn in Egypt,
the first progeny of the tents of Ham.

⁵² He led his people out like sheep
and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.
⁵³ He led them safely, and they were not afraid;
but the sea covered their enemies.
⁵⁴ He brought them to his holy territory,
to the mountain his right hand acquired.
⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them.
He apportioned their inheritance by lot
and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶ But they rebelliously tested the Most High God,
for they did not keep his decrees.
⁵⁷ They treacherously turned away like their ancestors;
they became warped like a faulty bow.
⁵⁸ They enraged him with their high places
and provoked his jealousy with their carved images.
⁵⁹ God heard and became furious;
he completely rejected Israel.
⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,
the tent where he resided among mankind.
⁶¹ He gave up his strength to captivity
and his splendor to the hand of a foe.
⁶² He surrendered his people to the sword
because he was enraged with his heritage.
⁶³ Fire consumed his chosen young men,
and his young women had no wedding songs.^,
64 His priests fell by the sword,
and the widows could not lament.

⁶⁵ The Lord awoke as if from sleep,
like a warrior from the effects of wine.
⁶⁶ He beat back his foes;
he gave them lasting disgrace.
⁶⁷ He rejected the tent of Joseph
and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
⁶⁸ He chose instead the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loved.
⁶⁹ He built his sanctuary like the heights,
like the earth that he established forever.
⁷⁰ He chose David his servant
and took him from the sheep pens;
⁷¹ he brought him from tending ewes
to be shepherd over his people Jacob—
over Israel, his inheritance.
⁷² He shepherded them with a pure heart
and guided them with his skillful hands.