Psalms 106:6-43

6We have done bad things, as our ancestors also did. We have done things that are wicked and evil.

7When 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.

8But the Lord rescued them, to show that his name is great. He showed that he was very powerful.

9He 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!

10He rescued them from the people who hated them. He saved them from their enemy's power.

11The water of the sea drowned their enemies, so that none of them remained alive.

12Then God's people believed his promises. They sang songs to praise him.

13But they soon forgot what the Lord had done to help them. They did not wait for him to tell them what to do.

14In the wilderness they wanted better food. They tested God to see what he would do.

15He gave them the food that they asked for, but he also sent a bad disease on them.

16The people became jealous of Moses, and Aaron, the Lord's special priest.

17So God made the earth break open, so that Dathan fell into it. It also destroyed Abiram and his people.

18Fire burned all their group, and it killed those wicked people.

19At Horeb, the Israelites used gold to make a cow, and they worshipped it.

20They turned away from their great God. Instead, they worshipped the statue of a cow, an animal that eats grass!

21They forgot the God who had saved them, when he did great miracles in Egypt.

22He 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!

23So 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.

24Later, they did not believe God's promise to take them safely into the beautiful land of Canaan.

25They spoke against the Lord in their tents, and they did not obey him.

26So he made a strong promise that he would cause them to die in the desert.

27He promised that he would chase their descendants away, so that they died in foreign countries.

28After that, they started to worship the false god, Baal of Peor. They ate the food from sacrifices that people gave to dead idols.

29The Lord became angry because of what his people did. He sent a bad disease among them.

30Then Phinehas punished the guilty people, so that the disease stopped killing people.

31So we remember that Phinehas was a righteous man, and that will be true for ever.

32At Meribah springs, the Israelites made God angry. What they did there caused Moses to have trouble.

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

34The Lord commanded his people to destroy the nations of Canaan, But they did not obey the Lord's command.

35Instead, they mixed with those nations and they learned their way of life.

36They worshipped their idols which caught them in a trap.

37They even killed their sons and their daughters as sacrifices for those idols of demons!

38Their 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.

39The 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.

40So the Lord became angry with his people. They belonged to him but he turned away from them.

41He let other nations have power over them. Their enemies ruled over them.

42Their enemies had power to hurt them, and they were cruel to them.

43Many times, the Lord rescued his people, but they had decided not to obey him. Their sins made them weaker and weaker.