A contemplation by Asaph.

• ¹God, why have you rejected us forever?
• Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?

• ²Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old,
• which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance;
• Mount Zion, in which you have lived.

• ³Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins,
• all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary.

• ⁴Your adversaries have roared in the midst of your assembly.
• They have set up their standards as signs.

• ⁵They behaved like men wielding axes,
• cutting through a thicket of trees.

• ⁶Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers.
• ⁷They have burned your sanctuary to the ground.
• They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name.

• ⁸They said in their heart, “We will crush them completely.”
• They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.

• ⁹We see no miraculous signs.
• There is no longer any prophet,
• neither is there among us anyone who knows how long.

• ¹⁰How long, God, shall the adversary reproach?
• Shall the enemy blaspheme your name forever?

• ¹¹Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand?
• Take it out of your pocket and consume them!

• ¹²Yet God is my King of old,
• working salvation in the midst of the earth.

• ¹³You divided the sea by your strength.
• You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.

• ¹⁴You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces.
• You gave him as food to people and desert creatures.

• ¹⁵You opened up spring and stream.
• You dried up mighty rivers.

• ¹⁶The day is yours, the night is also yours.
• You have prepared the light and the sun.

• ¹⁷You have set all the boundaries of the earth.
• You have made summer and winter.

• ¹⁸Remember this, that the enemy has mocked you, Yahweh.
• Foolish people have blasphemed your name.

• ¹⁹Don’t deliver the soul of your dove to wild beasts.
• Don’t forget the life of your poor forever.

• ²⁰Honor your covenant,
• for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth.

• ²¹Don’t let the oppressed return ashamed.
• Let the poor and needy praise your name.

• ²²Arise, God! Plead your own cause.
• Remember how the foolish man mocks you all day.

• ²³Don’t forget the voice of your adversaries.
• The tumult of those who rise up against you ascends continually.