78:43 when he performed his awesome deeds in Egypt,
and his acts of judgment in the region of Zoan.
78:44 He turned their rivers into blood,
and they could not drink from their streams.
78:45 He sent swarms of biting insects against them,
as well as frogs that overran their land.
78:46 He gave their crops to the grasshopper,
the fruit of their labor to the locust.
78:47 He destroyed their vines with hail,
and their sycamore-fig trees with driving rain.
78:48 He rained hail down on their cattle,
and hurled lightning bolts down on their livestock.
78:49 His raging anger lashed out against them,
He sent fury, rage, and trouble
as messengers who bring disaster.
78:50 He sent his anger in full force;
he did not spare them from death;
he handed their lives over to destruction.
78:51 He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their reproductive power in the tents of Ham.
78:52 Yet he brought out his people like sheep;
he led them through the wilderness like a flock.
78:53 He guided them safely along,
while the sea covered their enemies.
78:54 He brought them to the border of his holy land,
to this mountainous land which his right hand acquired.
78:55 He drove the nations out from before them;
he assigned them their tribal allotments
and allowed the tribes of Israel to settle down.
78:56 Yet they challenged and defied the sovereign God,
and did not obey his commands.
78:57 They were unfaithful and acted as treacherously as their ancestors;
they were as unreliable as a malfunctioning bow.
78:58 They made him angry with their pagan shrines,
and made him jealous with their idols.