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Psalms 77:20
You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.
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Psalms 105:39-41
The Lord spread a cloud above them as a covering and gave them a great fire to light the darkness.They asked for meat, and he sent them quail; he satisfied their hunger with manna— bread from heaven.He split open a rock, and water gushed out to form a river through the dry wasteland.
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Psalms 78:14-72
In the daytime he led them by a cloud, and all night by a pillar of fire.He split open the rocks in the wilderness to give them water, as from a gushing spring.He made streams pour from the rock, making the waters flow down like a river!Yet they kept on sinning against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.They stubbornly tested God in their hearts, demanding the foods they craved.They even spoke against God himself, saying,“ God can’t give us food in the wilderness.Yes, he can strike a rock so water gushes out, but he can’t give his people bread and meat.”When the Lord heard them, he was furious. The fire of his wrath burned against Jacob. Yes, his anger rose against Israel,for they did not believe God or trust him to care for them.But he commanded the skies to open; he opened the doors of heaven.He rained down manna for them to eat; he gave them bread from heaven.They ate the food of angels! God gave them all they could hold.He released the east wind in the heavens and guided the south wind by his mighty power.He rained down meat as thick as dust— birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore!He caused the birds to fall within their camp and all around their tents.The people ate their fill. He gave them what they craved.But before they satisfied their craving, while the meat was yet in their mouths,the anger of God rose against them, and he killed their strongest men. He struck down the finest of Israel’s young men.But in spite of this, the people kept sinning. Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him.So he ended their lives in failure, their years in terror.When God began killing them, they finally sought him. They repented and took God seriously.Then they remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their redeemer.But all they gave him was lip service; they lied to him with their tongues.Their hearts were not loyal to him. They did not keep his covenant.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!For he remembered that they were merely mortal, gone like a breath of wind that never returns.Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland.Again and again they tested God’s patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel.They did not remember his power and how he rescued them from their enemies.They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plain of Zoan.For he turned their rivers into blood, so no one could drink from the streams.He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them and hordes of frogs to ruin them.He gave their crops to caterpillars; their harvest was consumed by locusts.He destroyed their grapevines with hail and shattered their sycamore figs with sleet.He abandoned their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.He loosed on them his fierce anger— all his fury, rage, and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels.He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives but ravaged them with the plague.He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt.But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness.He kept them safe so they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies.He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this land of hills he had won for them.He drove out the nations before them; he gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes.But they kept testing and rebelling against God Most High. They did not obey his laws.They turned back and were as faithless as their parents. They were as undependable as a crooked bow.They angered God by building shrines to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols.When God heard them, he was very angry, and he completely rejected Israel.Then he abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh, the Tabernacle where he had lived among the people.He allowed the Ark of his might to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands.He gave his people over to be butchered by the sword, because he was so angry with his own people— his special possession.Their young men were killed by fire; their young women died before singing their wedding songs.Their priests were slaughtered, and their widows could not mourn their deaths.Then the Lord rose up as though waking from sleep, like a warrior aroused from a drunken stupor.He routed his enemies and sent them to eternal shame.But he rejected Joseph’s descendants; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.He chose instead the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which he loved.There he built his sanctuary as high as the heavens, as solid and enduring as the earth.He chose his servant David, calling him from the sheep pens.He took David from tending the ewes and lambs and made him the shepherd of Jacob’s descendants— God’s own people, Israel.He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skillful hands.
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Psalms 106:12-48
Then his people believed his promises. Then they sang his praise.Yet how quickly they forgot what he had done! They wouldn’t wait for his counsel!In the wilderness their desires ran wild, testing God’s patience in that dry wasteland.So he gave them what they asked for, but he sent a plague along with it.The people in the camp were jealous of Moses and envious of Aaron, the Lord’s holy priest.Because of this, the earth opened up; it swallowed Dathan and buried Abiram and the other rebels.Fire fell upon their followers; a flame consumed the wicked.The people made a calf at Mount Sinai; they bowed before an image made of gold.They traded their glorious God for a statue of a grass eating bull.They forgot God, their savior, who had done such great things in Egypt—such wonderful things in the land of Ham, such awesome deeds at the Red Sea.So he declared he would destroy them. But Moses, his chosen one, stepped between the Lord and the people. He begged him to turn from his anger and not destroy them.The people refused to enter the pleasant land, for they wouldn’t believe his promise to care for them.Instead, they grumbled in their tents and refused to obey the Lord.Therefore, he solemnly swore that he would kill them in the wilderness,that he would scatter their descendants among the nations, exiling them to distant lands.Then our ancestors joined in the worship of Baal at Peor; they even ate sacrifices offered to the dead!They angered the Lord with all these things, so a plague broke out among them.But Phinehas had the courage to intervene, and the plague was stopped.So he has been regarded as a righteous man ever since that time.At Meribah, too, they angered the Lord, causing Moses serious trouble.They made Moses angry, and he spoke foolishly.Israel failed to destroy the nations in the land, as the Lord had commanded them.Instead, they mingled among the pagans and adopted their evil customs.They worshiped their idols, which led to their downfall.They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons.They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters. By sacrificing them to the idols of Canaan, they polluted the land with murder.They defiled themselves by their evil deeds, and their love of idols was adultery in the Lord’s sight.That is why the Lord’s anger burned against his people, and he abhorred his own special possession.He handed them over to pagan nations, and they were ruled by those who hated them.Their enemies crushed them and brought them under their cruel power.Again and again he rescued them, but they chose to rebel against him, and they were finally destroyed by their sin.Even so, he pitied them in their distress and listened to their cries.He remembered his covenant with them and relented because of his unfailing love.He even caused their captors to treat them with kindness.Save us, O Lord our God! Gather us back from among the nations, so we can thank your holy name and rejoice and praise you.Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting! Let all the people say,“ Amen!” Praise the Lord!
