Psalms

Chapter 73

  1. 1

    O God, hast thou altogether abandoned us? Sheep of thy own pasturing, must we feel the fires of thy vengeance?

  2. 2

    Bethink thee of the company thou hast gathered, long ago; of the tribe thou hast chosen to be thy domain; of mount Sion, where thou hast thy dwelling-place.

  3. 3

    Hither turn thy steps, where all is ruin irretrievable; see what havoc thy enemies have wrought in the holy place,

  4. 4

    how their malice has raged in thy very precincts,1 setting up its emblems

  5. 5

    for a trophy of conquest. Blow after blow, like woodmen in the forest,

  6. 6

    they have plied their axes, brought it down, with pick and mallet, to the ground.

  7. 7

    They have set fire to thy sanctuary, sullied the dwelling-place of thy glory in the dust.

  8. 8

    They think to destroy us like one man, sweep away every shrine of God in the land.

  9. 9

    Our own emblems are nowhere to be seen; there are no prophets left now, none can tell how long we must endure.

  10. 10

    O God, shall our enemy taunt us everlastingly, shall blasphemy still defy thy name?

  11. 11

    Why dost thou withhold thy hand? That right hand of thine, must it always lie idle in thy bosom?

  12. 12

    Mine is a King who reigned before time was; here on earth he was the means to bring deliverance.

  13. 13

    What power but thine could sunder the shifting sea, crush the power of the monster beneath its waters;

  14. 14

    shatter Leviathan’s power, and give him up as prey to the sea-beasts?

  15. 15

    Thou didst open up fountains and streams of water; thou, too, madest the swollen rivers run dry.

  16. 16

    Thine is the day, thine the night; moon and sun are of thy appointment;

  17. 17

    thou hast fixed all the bounds of earth, madest the summer, madest the cool of the year.

  18. 18

    Wilt thou take no heed, when thy enemies taunt thee, and in their recklessness set the divine name at defiance?

  19. 19

    Must the dove be the vulture’s prey? Souls unbefriended, but for thee, wilt thou leave us quite forgotten?

  20. 20

    Bethink thee of thy covenant; everywhere oppression lurks, or walks openly through the fields.

  21. 21

    Do not let the humble go away disappointed; teach the poor and the helpless to exalt thy name.

  22. 22

    Bestir thyself, O God, to vindicate thy own cause; do not forget the taunts which reckless men hurl at thee, day after day;

  23. 23

    do not overlook them, the triumphant shouts of thy enemies, the ever growing clamour that here defies thee.