Psalm 78:17-58

17But they continued to sin against him, rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.

18They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved.

19They spoke against God; they said, “Can God really spread a table in the wilderness?

20True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out, streams flowed abundantly, but can he also give us bread? Can he supply meat for his people?”

21When the LORD heard them, he was furious; his fire broke out against Jacob, and his wrath rose against Israel,

22for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance.

23Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens;

24he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.

25Human beings ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.

26He let loose the east wind from the heavens and by his power made the south wind blow.

27He rained meat down on them like dust, birds like sand on the seashore.

28He made them come down inside their camp, all around their tents.

29They ate till they were gorged— he had given them what they craved.

30But before they turned from what they craved, even while the food was still in their mouths,

31God’s anger rose against them; he put to death the sturdiest among them, cutting down the young men of Israel.

32In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.

33So he ended their days in futility and their years in terror.

34Whenever God slew them, they would seek him; they eagerly turned to him again.

35They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

36But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues;

37their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant.

38Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.

39He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

40How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the wasteland!

41Again and again they put God to the test; they vexed the Holy One of Israel.

42They did not remember his power— the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,

43the day he displayed his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the region of Zoan.

44He turned their river into blood; they could not drink from their streams.

45He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

46He gave their crops to the grasshopper, their produce to the locust.

47He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

48He gave over their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.

49He unleashed against them his hot anger, his wrath, indignation and hostility— a band of destroying angels.

50He prepared a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death but gave them over to the plague.

51He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.

52But he brought his people out like a flock; he led them like sheep through the wilderness.

53He guided them safely, so they were unafraid; but the sea engulfed their enemies.

54And so he brought them to the border of his holy land, to the hill country his right hand had taken.

55He drove out nations before them and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance; he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.

56But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes.

57Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow.

58They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.