Psalms 78:31-55

³¹when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of their strongest, 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 also gave their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.

⁴⁸He also gave over their livestock 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.