Psalm 106:6–27

⁶We have sinned, just as our people of long ago did.

We too have done what is evil and wrong.

⁷When our people were in Egypt,

they forgot about the Lord’s miracles.

They didn’t remember his many kind acts.

At the Red Sea they refused to obey him.

⁸But he saved them for the honor of his name.

He did it to make his mighty power known.

⁹He ordered the Red Sea to dry up, and it did.

He led his people through it as if it were a desert.

¹⁰He saved them from the power of their enemies.

He set them free from their control.

¹¹The waters covered their enemies.

Not one of them escaped alive.

¹²Then his people believed his promises

and sang praise to him.

¹³But they soon forgot what he had done.

They didn’t wait for his advice.

¹⁴In the desert they longed for food.

In that dry and empty land they put God to the test.

¹⁵So he gave them what they asked for.

But he also sent a sickness that killed many of them.

¹⁶In their camp some of them became jealous of Moses.

They were also jealous of Aaron. He had been set apart to serve the Lord.

¹⁷The ground opened up and swallowed Dathan.

It buried Abiram and his followers.

¹⁸Fire blazed among all of them.

Flames destroyed those evil people.

¹⁹At Mount Horeb they made a metal statue of a bull calf.

They worshiped that statue of a god.

²⁰They traded their glorious God

for a statue of a bull that eats grass.

²¹They forgot the God who saved them.

They forgot the One who had done great things in Egypt.

²²They forgot the miracles he did in the land of Ham.

They forgot the wonderful things he did by the Red Sea.

²³So he said he would destroy them.

But Moses, his chosen one,

stood up for them.

He kept God’s anger from destroying them.

²⁴Later on, they refused to enter the pleasant land of Canaan.

They didn’t believe God’s promise.

²⁵In their tents they told the Lord how unhappy they were.

They didn’t obey him.

²⁶So he lifted up his hand and promised with an oath

that he would make them die in the desert.

²⁷He promised he would scatter their children’s children among the nations.

He would make them die in other lands.