Psalms

An Instructive Psalm. Asaph’s.

74 Wherefore, O God, hast thou cast off utterly? Shall thine anger smoke against the flock of thine own pasturing?

2 Remember thine own assembly thou didst acquire aforetime, Thou didst redeem the tribe of thine own inheritance, Mount Zion, wherein thou didst take up thy habitation.

3 Lift up thy steps unto the places utterly unsafe, All the mischief!—the foe in the sanctuary!

4 Thine adversaries have roared in the midst of thine appointed meeting, They have set their ensigns as tokens!

5 One used to be known according as he carried up high—Into the thicket of trees—the axes;

6 But now the doors thereof all together with axes and hammers they batter down.

7 They have cast into the fire thy sanctuary, To the ground have they profaned the habitation of thy Name.

8 They have said in their heart, Let us suppress them altogether, They have burned up all the meeting-places of God in the land.

9 Our own signs have we not seen,—There is no longer a prophet,—Neither is there with us one who knoweth—How long!

10 How long, O God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy revile thy Name perpetually?

11 Wherefore shouldst thou withdraw thy hand—thy right hand? [Bring it] out of the midst of thy bosom! [Selah.

12 But God hath been my king from aforetime, Working Deliverances in the midst of the earth.

13 Thou didst cleave asunder in thy might the sea, Thou didst break in pieces the heads of the Crocodiles, [till they floated] on the waters;

14 Thou didst crush the heads of the Sea-Monster. Thou didst give him to be food for the people of the deserts;

15 Thou didst cleave open fountain and torrent, Thou didst dry up rivers of steady flow:

16 Thine is the day, Yea thine the night, Thou didst establish moon and sun;

17 Thou didst set up all the bounds of the earth, As for summer and winter thou didst form them!

18 Remember this, An enemy hath reproached Yahweh, Yea an impious people have reviled thy Name.

19 Do not deliver up to a wild beast the life of thy turtle-dove, The living host of thine oppressed ones do not forget perpetually.

20 Have respect to thy covenant, For the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence.

21 May the crushed one not again be confounded, As for the oppressed and the needy let them praise thy Name.

22 Arise! O God, plead thine own cause, Remember the reproach of thee from the impious one all the day:

23 Do not forget the voice of thine adversaries, The noise of thine assailants ascending continually.