Psalm 104–107

In Praise of the Creator

104Praise the Lord, my soul!

O Lord, my God, how great you are!

You are clothed with majesty and glory;

²you cover yourself with light.

You have spread out the heavens like a tent

³and built your home on the waters above.^h

You use the clouds as your chariot

and ride on the wings of the wind.

^4*You use the winds as your messengers

and flashes of lightning as your servants.

⁵You have set the earth firmly on its foundations,

and it will never be moved.

⁶You placed the ocean over it like a robe,

and the water covered the mountains.

⁷When you rebuked the waters, they fled;

they rushed away when they heard your shout of command.

⁸They flowed over the mountains and into the valleys,

to the place you had made for them.

⁹You set a boundary they can never pass,

to keep them from covering the earth again.

¹⁰You make springs flow in the valleys,

and rivers run between the hills.

¹¹They provide water for the wild animals;

there the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

¹²In the trees near by,

the birds make their nests and sing.

¹³From the sky you send rain on the hills,

and the earth is filled with your blessings.

¹⁴You make grass grow for the cattle

and plants for human beings to use,

so that they can grow their crops

¹⁵and produce wine to make them happy,

olive oil to make them cheerful,

and bread to give them strength.

¹⁶The cedars of Lebanon get plenty of rain—

the Lord’s own trees, which he planted.

¹⁷There the birds build their nests;

the storks nest in the fir trees.

¹⁸The wild goats live in the high mountains,

and the rock-badgers hide in the cliffs.

¹⁹You created the moon to mark the months;

the sun knows the time to set.

²⁰You made the night, and in the darkness

all the wild animals come out.

²¹The young lions roar while they hunt,

looking for the food that God provides.

²²When the sun rises, they go back

and lie down in their dens.

²³Then people go out to do their work

and keep working until evening.

²⁴Lord, you have made so many things!

How wisely you made them all!

The earth is filled with your creatures.

²⁵There is the ocean, large and wide,

where countless creatures live,

large and small alike.

^26*The ships sail on it, and in it plays Leviathan,

that sea monster which you made.ⁱ

²⁷All of them depend on you

to give them food when they need it.

²⁸You give it to them, and they eat it;

you provide food, and they are satisfied.

²⁹When you turn away, they are afraid;

when you take away your breath, they die

and go back to the dust from which they came.

³⁰But when you give them breath,^j they are created;

you give new life to the earth.

³¹May the glory of the Lord last for ever!

May the Lord be happy with what he has made!

³²He looks at the earth, and it trembles;

he touches the mountains, and they pour out smoke.

³³I will sing to the Lord all my life;

as long as I live I will sing praises to my God.

³⁴May he be pleased with my song,

for my gladness comes from him.

³⁵May sinners be destroyed from the earth;

may the wicked be no more.

Praise the Lord, my soul!

Praise the Lord!

God and His People

105Give thanks to the Lord, proclaim his greatness;

tell the nations what he has done.

²Sing praise to the Lord;

tell of the wonderful things he has done.

³Be glad that we belong to him; let all who worship him rejoice.

⁴Go to the Lord for help;

and worship him continually.

^5–6You descendants of Abraham, his servant;

you descendants of Jacob, the man he chose:

remember the miracles that God performed

and the judgements that he gave.

⁷The Lord is our God;

his commands are for all the world.

⁸He will keep his covenant for ever, his promises for a thousand generations.

^9*He will keep the agreement he made with Abraham

and his promise to Isaac.

^10*The Lord made a covenant with Jacob,

one that will last for ever.

^11*“I will give you the land of Canaan,” he said.

“It will be your own possession.”

¹²God’s people were few in number,

strangers in the land of Canaan.

¹³They wandered from country to country,

from one kingdom to another.

^14*But God let no one oppress them;

to protect them, he warned the kings:

^15*“Don’t harm my chosen servants;

do not touch my prophets.”

^16*The Lord sent famine to their country

and took away all their food.

^17*But he sent a man ahead of them,

Joseph, who had been sold as a slave.

^18*His feet were kept in chains,

and an iron collar was round his neck,

^19*until what he had predicted came true.

The word of the Lord proved him right.

^20*Then the king of Egypt had him released;

the ruler of nations set him free.

^21*He put him in charge of his government

and made him ruler over all the land,

²²with power over the king’s officials

and authority to instruct his advisers.

^23*Then Jacob went to Egypt

and settled in that country.

^24*The Lord gave many children to his people

and made them stronger than their enemies.

^25*He made the Egyptians hate his people

and treat his servants with deceit.

^26*Then he sent his servant Moses,

and Aaron, whom he had chosen.

²⁷They did God’s mighty acts

and performed miracles in Egypt.

^28*God sent darkness on the country,

but the Egyptians did not obey^k his command.

^29*He turned their rivers into blood

and killed all their fish.

^30*Their country was overrun with frogs,

even the palace was filled with them.

^31*God commanded, and flies and gnats

swarmed throughout the whole country.

^32*He sent hail and lightning on their land

instead of rain;

^33*he destroyed their grapevines and fig trees

and broke down all the trees.

^34*He commanded, and the locusts came,

countless millions of them;

^35*they ate all the plants in the land;

they ate all the crops.

^36*He killed the firstborn sons

of all the families of Egypt.

^37*Then he led the Israelites out;

they carried silver and gold,

and all of them were healthy and strong.

^38*The Egyptians were afraid of them

and were glad when they left.

^39*God put a cloud over his people

and a fire at night to give them light.

^40*They^l asked, and he sent quails;

he gave them food from heaven to satisfy them.

^41*He opened a rock, and water gushed out,

flowing through the desert like a river.

⁴²He remembered his sacred promise

to Abraham his servant.

⁴³So he led his chosen people out,

and they sang and shouted for joy.

^44*He gave them the lands of other peoples

and let them take over their fields,

⁴⁵so that his people would obey his laws

and keep all his commands.

Praise the Lord!

The ’s Goodness to His People

106^*Praise the Lord!

Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good;

his love is eternal.

²Who can tell all the great things he has done?

Who can praise him enough?

³Happy are those who obey his commands,

who always do what is right.

⁴Remember me, Lord, when you help your people;

include me when you save them.

⁵Let me see the prosperity of your people

and share in the happiness of your nation,

in the glad pride of those who belong to you.

⁶We have sinned as our ancestors did;

we have been wicked and evil.

^7*Our ancestors in Egypt did not understand God’s wonderful acts;

they forgot the many times he showed them his love,

and they rebelled against the Almighty^m at the Red Sea.

⁸But he saved them, as he had promised,

in order to show his great power.

^9*He gave a command to the Red Sea,

and it dried up;

he led his people across on dry land.

^10*He saved them from those who hated them;

he rescued them from their enemies.

^11*But the water drowned their enemies;

not one of them was left.

^12*Then his people believed his promises

and sang praises to him.

¹³But they quickly forgot what he had done

and acted without waiting for his advice.

^14*They were filled with craving in the desert

and put God to the test;

^15*so he gave them what they asked for,

but also sent a terrible disease among them.

^16*There in the desert they were jealous of Moses

and of Aaron, the Lord’s holy servant.

^17*Then the earth opened up and swallowed Dathan

and buried Abiram and his family;

^18*fire came down on their followers

and burnt up those wicked people.

^19*They made a gold bull calf at Sinai

and worshipped that idol;

^20*they exchanged the glory of God

for the image of an animal that eats grass.

^21*They forgot the God who had saved them

by his mighty acts in Egypt.

^22*What wonderful things he did there!

What amazing things at the Red Sea!

^23*When God said that he would destroy his people,

his chosen servant, Moses, stood up against God

and prevented his anger from destroying them.

^24*Then they rejected the pleasant land,

because they did not believe God’s promise.

^25*They stayed in their tents and grumbled

and would not listen to the Lord.

^26*So he gave them a solemn warning

that he would make them die in the desert

^27*and scatter their descendants among the heathen,

letting them die in foreign countries.

^28*Then at Peor, God’s people joined in the worship of Baal,

and ate sacrifices offered to dead gods.

^29*They stirred up the Lord’s anger by their actions,

and a terrible disease broke out among them.

^30*But Phinehas stood up and punished the guilty,

and the plague was stopped.

^31*This has been remembered in his favour ever since

and will be for all time to come.

^32*At the springs of Meribah the people made the Lord angry,

and Moses was in trouble on their account.

^33*They made him so bitter

that he spoke without stopping to think.

^34*They did not kill the heathen,

as the Lord had commanded them to do,

^35*but they intermarried with them

and adopted their pagan ways.

^36*God’s people worshipped idols,

and this caused their destruction.

^37*They offered their own sons and daughters

as sacrifices to the idols of Canaan.

^38*They killed those innocent children,

and the land was defiled by those murders.

³⁹They made themselves impure by their actions

and were unfaithful to God.

^40*So the Lord was angry with his people;

he was disgusted with them.

^41*He abandoned them to the power of the heathen,

and their enemies ruled over them.

^42*They were oppressed by their enemies

and were in complete subjection to them.

^43*Many times the Lord rescued his people,

but they chose to rebel…