Psalm 106:6–27

⁶Like our ancestors, we have sinned.

We have done wrong! We have acted wickedly!

⁷Our ancestors in Egypt

were not impressed by the Lord’s miraculous deeds.

They soon forgot his many acts of kindness to them.

Instead, they rebelled against him at the Red Sea.

⁸Even so, he saved them—

to defend the honor of his name

and to demonstrate his mighty power.

⁹He commanded the Red Sea to dry up.

He led Israel across the sea as if it were a desert.

¹⁰So he rescued them from their enemies

and redeemed them from their foes.

¹¹Then the water returned and covered their enemies;

not one of them survived.

¹²Then his people believed his promises.

Then they sang his praise.

¹³Yet how quickly they forgot what he had done!

They wouldn’t wait for his counsel!

¹⁴In the wilderness their desires ran wild,

testing God’s patience in that dry wasteland.

¹⁵So he gave them what they asked for,

but he sent a plague along with it.

¹⁶The people in the camp were jealous of Moses

and envious of Aaron, the Lord’s holy priest.

¹⁷Because of this, the earth opened up;

it swallowed Dathan

and buried Abiram and the other rebels.

¹⁸Fire fell upon their followers;

a flame consumed the wicked.

¹⁹The people made a calf at Mount Sinai;

they bowed before an image made of gold.

²⁰They traded their glorious God

for a statue of a grass-eating bull.

²¹They forgot God, their savior,

who had done such great things in Egypt—

²²such wonderful things in the land of Ham,

such awesome deeds at the Red Sea.

²³So 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.

²⁴The people refused to enter the pleasant land,

for they wouldn’t believe his promise to care for them.

²⁵Instead, they grumbled in their tents

and refused to obey the Lord.

²⁶Therefore, he solemnly swore

that he would kill them in the wilderness,

²⁷that he would scatter their descendants among the nations,

exiling them to distant lands.