Psalm 106

The Lord is good!

106:1The writer remembers that the Israelites have often turned against God. God has done many great things to rescue them, but they have still not obeyed him.

1 Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

Thank the Lord, because he is good.

His faithful love will always be with us.

2 The great things that the Lord has done

are too many to tell!

Nobody can praise him enough.

3 God has blessed the people who obey his commands.

They always do what is right.

4 Lord, when you help your people,

please remember me!

Do not forget to help me,

when you come to rescue them.

5 I want to enjoy the good things

that you give to the people that you have chosen.

I want to be happy together with them.

I want to join with the people who belong to you,

and praise you as you deserve.

6 We have done bad things,

as our ancestors also did.

We have done things that are wicked and evil.

7 When our ancestors were in Egypt,

they did not understand your miracles.

They forgot the many ways that you showed them your faithful love.

When they arrived at the Red Sea,

they turned against you, Lord.

8 But the Lord rescued them,

to show that his name is great.

He showed that he was very powerful.

9 He shouted at the Red Sea,

and it became dry.

He led his people through the middle of the deep water,

as if they walked in a desert!

10 He rescued them from the people who hated them.

He saved them from their enemy's power.

11 The water of the sea drowned their enemies,

so that none of them remained alive.

106:11See Exodus 14.

12 Then God's people believed his promises.

They sang songs to praise him.

106:12They sang songs to praise God, but they soon forgot how God had saved them.

13 But they soon forgot

what the Lord had done to help them.

They did not wait for him to tell them what to do.

14 In the wilderness they wanted better food.

They tested God to see what he would do.

15 He gave them the food that they asked for,

but he also sent a bad disease on them.

106:15See Numbers 11:33-34.

16 The people became jealous of Moses,

and Aaron, the Lord's special priest.

17 So God made the earth break open,

so that Dathan fell into it.

It also destroyed Abiram and his people.

18 Fire burned all their group,

and it killed those wicked people.

106:18See Numbers 16:1-40.

19 At Horeb, the Israelites used gold to make a cow,

and they worshipped it.

20 They turned away from their great God.

Instead, they worshipped the statue of a cow,

an animal that eats grass!

106:20See Exodus 32. Horeb is another name for Sinai mountain.

21 They forgot the God who had saved them,

when he did great miracles in Egypt.

22 He had done powerful things in the land of Ham's descendants,

and at the shore of the Red Sea.

His people forgot about all that!

23 So God said that he would destroy them.

But God's servant, Moses, spoke on their behalf.

He asked God not to be angry with his people,

and God agreed.

24 Later, they did not believe God's promise

to take them safely into the beautiful land of Canaan.

25 They spoke against the Lord in their tents,

and they did not obey him.

26 So he made a strong promise

that he would cause them to die in the desert.

27 He promised that he would chase their descendants away,

so that they died in foreign countries.

106:27See Numbers 13-14.

28 After that, they started to worship the false god, Baal of Peor.

They ate the food from sacrifices

that people gave to dead idols.

29 The Lord became angry

because of what his people did.

He sent a bad disease among them.

30 Then Phinehas punished the guilty people,

so that the disease stopped killing people.

106:30See Numbers 25:7-8.

31 So we remember that Phinehas was a righteous man,

and that will be true for ever.

32 At Meribah springs, the Israelites made God angry.

What they did there caused Moses to have trouble.

33 Moses was so upset that he spoke in a careless way.

106:33See Numbers 20:1-13.

34 The Lord commanded his people

to destroy the nations of Canaan,

But they did not obey the Lord's command.

35 Instead, they mixed with those nations

and they learned their way of life.

36 They worshipped their idols

which caught them in a trap.

37 They even killed their sons and their daughters

as sacrifices for those idols of demons!

38 Their sons and their daughters did not deserve to die,

but they killed them as sacrifices for the idols of Canaan.

Those murders made the land unclean.

39 The things that the Lord's people did

made them unclean.

They were not faithful to the Lord,

like a wife who is not faithful to her husband.

40 So the Lord became angry with his people.

They belonged to him

but he turned away from them.

41 He let other nations have power over them.

Their enemies ruled over them.

42 Their enemies had power to hurt them,

and they were cruel to them.

43 Many times, the Lord rescued his people,

but they had decided not to obey him.

Their sins made them weaker and weaker.

44 But the Lord still saw when they were in trouble.

He answered them when they called to him for help.

45 He remembered the covenant that he had made with them.

Because of his faithful love for his people,

he stopped punishing them.

46 He caused all their enemies to be kind to them.

47 Lord, our God, please save us!

Bring us safely home from among the other nations.

106:47The writer prays that God will take his people home to Judah from Babylon and other places.

Then we will thank you!

We will shout aloud to praise your holy name.

48 Praise the Lord, Israel's God,

as he deserves!

Praise him now and for ever!

Let everybody say, ‘Amen! We agree!’

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

106:48This verse shows the end of Book 4, Psalms 90-106.