Psalms
(A psalm of Asaph’s.)
2 They have given the bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air,
the flesh of your friends to the wild beasts of the earth.
3 They poured their blood out like water around Jerusalem
and there was nobody to bury them.
4 We became the butt of our neighbors’ taunts,
of the quips and gibes of those who live around us.
5 How long, Jehovah, will you be persistently angry,
shall your jealousy burn like a fire?
6 Pour out your ire on the nations that do not know you
and on kingdoms that have not called on your name,
7 For they have eaten Jacob up
and desolated his ground.
8 Do not remember against us our former guilts;
let your sympathy come in quickly for us,
because we are in great want.
9 Help us, God of our salvation, in consideration for the honor of your name,
and deliver us and purge our sins for your name’s sake.
10 Why should the nations say “Where is their God?”
under our eyes let the vengeance for the shed blood of your servants be notable among the nations.
11 Let prisoners’ groaning come in before you;
with your so great arm release men under sentence of death;
12 And return to our neighbors seven times over into their bosoms the insults they have offered to you, Lord;
13 And we, your people, the sheep you tend, will give you thanks forever,
will tell of your praise to generation after generation.