Psalms 73; Psalms 77; Psalms 78

Psalms 73

1 (72-1) <A psalm for Asaph.> How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!

2 (72-2) But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.

3 (72-3) Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.

4 (72-4) For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes.

5 (72-5) They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men.

6 (72-6) Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.

7 (72-7) Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.

8 (72-8) They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.

9 (72-9) They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.

10 (72-10) Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them.

11 (72-11) And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?

12 (72-12) Behold these are sinners; and yet, abounding in the world they have obtained riches.

13 (72-13) And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.

14 (72-14) And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.

15 (72-15) If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children.

16 (72-16) I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:

17 (72-17) Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.

18 (72-18) But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.

19 (72-19) How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.

20 (72-20) As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.

21 (72-21) For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed:

22 (72-22) And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.

23 (72-23) I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.

24 (72-24) Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.

25 (72-25) For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?

26 (72-26) For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.

27 (72-27) For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee.

28 (72-28) But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: That I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion.

Psalms 77

1 (76-1) <Unto the end, for Idithun, a psalm of Asaph.> (76-2) I cried to the Lord with my voice; to God with my voice, and he gave ear to me.

2 (76-3) In the days of my trouble I sought God, with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived. My soul refused to be comforted:

3 (76-4) I remembered God, and was delighted, and was exercised, and my spirit swooned away.

4 (76-5) My eyes prevented the watches: I was troubled, and I spoke not.

5 (76-6) I thought upon the days of old: and I had in my mind the eternal years.

6 (76-7) And I meditated in the night with my own heart: and I was exercised and I swept my spirit.

7 (76-8) Will God then cast off for ever? or will he never be more favourable again?

8 (76-9) Or will he cut off his mercy for ever, from generation to generation?

9 (76-10) Or will God forget to shew mercy? or will he in his anger shut up his mercies?

10 (76-11) And I said, Now have I begun: this is the change of the right hand of the most High.

11 (76-12) I remembered the works of the Lord: for I will be mindful of thy wonders from the beginning.

12 (76-13) And I will meditate on all thy works: and will be employed in thy inventions.

13 (76-14) Thy way, O God, is in the holy place: who is the great God like our God?

14 (76-15) Thou art the God that dost wonders. Thou hast made thy power known among the nations:

15 (76-16) With thy arm thou hast redeemed thy people the children of Jacob and of Joseph.

16 (76-17) The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee: and they were afraid, and the depths were troubled.

17 (76-18) Great was the noise of the waters: the clouds sent out a sound. For thy arrows pass:

18 (76-19) The voice of thy thunder in a wheel. Thy lightnings enlightened the world: the earth shook and trembled.

19 (76-20) Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths in many waters: and thy footsteps shall not be known.

20 (76-21) Thou hast conducted thy people like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Psalms 78

1 (77-1) <Understanding for Asaph.> Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2 (77-2) I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning.

3 (77-3) How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

4 (77-4) They have not been hidden from their children, in another generation. Declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders which he hath done.

5 (77-5) And he set up a testimony in Jacob: and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children:

6 (77-6) That another generation might know them. The children that should be born and should rise up, and declare them to their children.

7 (77-7) That they may put their hope in God and may not forget the works of God: and may seek his commandments.

8 (77-8) That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart aright: and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9 (77-9) The sons of Ephraim who bend and shoot with the bow: they have turned back in the day of battle.

10 (77-10) They kept not the covenant of God: and in his law they would not walk.

11 (77-11) And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them.

12 (77-12) Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis.

13 (77-13) He divided the sea and brought them through: and he made the waters to stand as in a vessel.

14 (77-14) And he conducted them with a cloud by day: and all the night with a light of fire.

15 (77-15) He struck the rock in the wilderness: and gave them to drink, as out of the great deep.

16 (77-16) He brought forth water out of the rock: and made streams run down as rivers.

17 (77-17) And they added yet more sin against him: they provoked the most High to wrath in the place without water.

18 (77-18) And they tempted God in their hearts, by asking meat for their desires.

19 (77-19) And they spoke ill of God: they said: Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?

20 (77-20) Because he struck the rock, and the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he also give bread, or provide a table for his people?

21 (77-21) Therefore the Lord heard, and was angry: and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and wrath came up against Israel.

22 (77-22) Because they believed not in God: and trusted not in his salvation.

23 (77-23) And he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of heaven.

24 (77-24) And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the bread of heaven.

25 (77-25) Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance.

26 (77-26) He removed the south wind from heaven: and by his power brought in the southwest wind.

27 (77-27) And he rained upon them flesh as dust: and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea.

28 (77-28) And they fell in the midst of their camp, round about their pavilions.

29 (77-29) So they did eat, and were filled exceedingly, and he gave them their desire:

30 (77-30) they were not defrauded of that which they craved. As yet their meat was in their mouth:

31 (77-31) And the wrath of God came upon them. And he slew the fat ones amongst them, and brought down the chosen men of Israel.

32 (77-32) In all these things they sinned still: and they behaved not for his wondrous works.

33 (77-33) And their days were consumed in vanity, and their years in haste.

34 (77-34) When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned, and came to him early in the morning.

35 (77-35) And they remembered that God was their helper: and the most high God their redeemer.

36 (77-36) And they loved him with their mouth: and with their tongue they lied unto him:

37 (77-37) But their heart was not right with him: nor were they counted faithful in his covenant.

38 (77-38) But he is merciful, and will forgive their sins: and will not destroy them. And many a time did he turn away his anger: and did not kindle all his wrath.

39 (77-39) And he remembered that they are flesh: a wind that goeth and returneth not.

40 (77-40) How often did they provoke him in the desert: and move him to wrath in the place without water?

41 (77-41) And they turned back and tempted God: and grieved the holy one of Israel.

42 (77-42) They remembered not his hand, in the day that he redeemed them from the hand of him that afflicted them:

43 (77-43) How he wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Tanis.

44 (77-44) And he turned their rivers into blood, and their showers that they might not drink.

45 (77-45) He sent amongst them divers sorts of flies, which devoured them: and frogs which destroyed them.

46 (77-46) And he gave up their fruits to the blast, and their labours to the locust.

47 (77-47) And he destroyed their vineyards with hail, and their mulberry trees with hoarfrost.

48 (77-48) And he gave up their cattle to the hail, and their stock to the fire.

49 (77-49) And he sent upon them the wrath of his indignation: indignation and wrath and trouble, which he sent by evil angels.

50 (77-50) He made a way for a path to his anger: he spared not their souls from death, and their cattle he shut up in death.

51 (77-51) And he killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt: the firstfruits of all their labour in the tabernacles of Cham.

52 (77-52) And he took away his own people as sheep: and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

53 (77-53) And he brought them out in hope and they feared not: and the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

54 (77-54) And he brought them into the mountain of his sanctuary: the mountain which his right hand had purchased. And he cast out the Gentiles before them: and by lot divided to them their land by a line of distribution.

55 (77-55) And he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tabernacles.

56 (77-56) Yet they tempted, and provoked the most high God: and they kept not his testimonies.

57 (77-57) And they turned away, and kept not the covenant: even like their fathers they were turned aside as a crooked bow.

58 (77-58) They provoked him to anger on their hills: and moved him to jealousy with their graven things.

59 (77-59) God heard, and despised them, and he reduced Israel exceedingly as it were to nothing.

60 (77-60) And he put away the tabernacle of Silo, his tabernacle where he dwelt among men.

61 (77-61) And he delivered their strength into captivity: and their beauty into the hands of the enemy.

62 (77-62) And he shut up his people under the sword: and he despised his inheritance.

63 (77-63) Fire consumed their young men: and their maidens were not lamented.

64 (77-64) Their priests fell by the sword: and their widows did not mourn.

65 (77-65) And the Lord was awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that hath been surfeited with wine.

66 (77-66) And he smote his enemies on the hinder parts: he put them to an everlasting reproach.

67 (77-67) And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph: and chose not the tribe of Ephraim:

68 (77-68) But he chose the tribe of Juda, mount Sion which he loved.

69 (77-69) And he built his sanctuary as of unicorns, in the land which he founded for ever.

70 (77-70) And he chose his servant David, and took him from the flocks of sheep: he brought him from following the ewes great with young,

71 (77-71) To feed Jacob his servant and Israel his inheritance.

72 (77-72) And he fed them in the innocence of his heart: and conducted them by the skilfulness of his hands.