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O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying, |
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for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past-- |
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stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us. |
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We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD, about his power and his mighty wonders. |
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For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, |
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so the next generation might know them-- even the children not yet born-- and they in turn will teach their own children. |
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So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands. |
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Then they will not be like their ancestors-- stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God. |
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The warriors of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned their backs and fled on the day of battle. |
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They did not keep God's covenant and refused to live by his instructions. |
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They forgot what he had done-- the great wonders he had shown them, |
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the miracles he did for their ancestors on the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt. |
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For he divided the sea and led them through, making the water stand up like walls! |
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In the daytime he led them by a cloud, and all night by a pillar of fire. |
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He split open the rocks in the wilderness to give them water, as from a gushing spring. |
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He made streams pour from the rock, making the waters flow down like a river! |
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Yet they kept on sinning against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert. |
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They stubbornly tested God in their hearts, demanding the foods they craved. |
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They even spoke against God himself, saying, "God can't give us food in the wilderness. |
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Yes, he can strike a rock so water gushes out, but he can't give his people bread and meat." |
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When the LORD heard them, he was furious. The fire of his wrath burned against Jacob. Yes, his anger rose against Israel, |
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for they did not believe God or trust him to care for them. |
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But he commanded the skies to open; he opened the doors of heaven. |
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He rained down manna for them to eat; he gave them bread from heaven. |
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They ate the food of angels! God gave them all they could hold. |
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He released the east wind in the heavens and guided the south wind by his mighty power. |
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He rained down meat as thick as dust-- birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore! |
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He caused the birds to fall within their camp and all around their tents. |
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The people ate their fill. He gave them what they craved. |
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But before they satisfied their craving, while the meat was yet in their mouths, |
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the anger of God rose against them, and he killed their strongest men. He struck down the finest of Israel's young men. |
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But in spite of this, the people kept sinning. Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him. |
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So he ended their lives in failure, their years in terror. |
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When God began killing them, they finally sought him. They repented and took God seriously. |
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Then they remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their redeemer. |
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But all they gave him was lip service; they lied to him with their tongues. |
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Their hearts were not loyal to him. They did not keep his covenant. |
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Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and did not destroy them all. Many times he held back his anger and did not unleash his fury! |
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For he remembered that they were merely mortal, gone like a breath of wind that never returns. |
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Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland. |
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Again and again they tested God's patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel. |
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They did not remember his power and how he rescued them from their enemies. |
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They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plain of Zoan. |
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For he turned their rivers into blood, so no one could drink from the streams. |
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He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them and hordes of frogs to ruin them. |
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He gave their crops to caterpillars; their harvest was consumed by locusts. |
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He destroyed their grapevines with hail and shattered their sycamore-figs with sleet. |
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He abandoned their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning. |
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He loosed on them his fierce anger-- all his fury, rage, and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels. |
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He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians' lives but ravaged them with the plague. |
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He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt. |
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But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness. |
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He kept them safe so they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies. |
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He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this land of hills he had won for them. |
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He drove out the nations before them; he gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes. |
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But they kept testing and rebelling against God Most High. They did not obey his laws. |
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They turned back and were as faithless as their parents. They were as undependable as a crooked bow. |
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They angered God by building shrines to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols. |
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When God heard them, he was very angry, and he completely rejected Israel. |
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Then he abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh, the Tabernacle where he had lived among the people. |
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He allowed the Ark of his might to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands. |
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He gave his people over to be butchered by the sword, because he was so angry with his own people-- his special possession. |
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Their young men were killed by fire; their young women died before singing their wedding songs. |
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Their priests were slaughtered, and their widows could not mourn their deaths. |
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Then the Lord rose up as though waking from sleep, like a warrior aroused from a drunken stupor. |
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He routed his enemies and sent them to eternal shame. |
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But he rejected Joseph's descendants; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim. |
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He chose instead the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which he loved. |
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There he built his sanctuary as high as the heavens, as solid and enduring as the earth. |
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He chose his servant David, calling him from the sheep pens. |
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He took David from tending the ewes and lambs and made him the shepherd of Jacob's descendants-- God's own people, Israel. |
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He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skillful hands. A psalm of Asaph. |
Psalms 78:35 English Language Bible Words basic statistical display
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