1O God, why hast thou cast us off? is it for evermore? Against thy pasture-sheep why doth thine anger smoke so sore? | 2O call to thy rememberance thy congregation, Which thou hast purchased of old; still think the same upon: | The rod of thine inheritance, which thou redeemed hast, This Sion hill, wherein thou hadst thy dwelling in times past. | 3To these long desolations thy feet lift, do not tarry; For all the ills thy foes have done within thy sanctuary. | 4Amidst thy congregations thine enemies do roar: Their ensigns they set up for signs of triumph thee before. | 5A man was famous, and was had in estimation, According as he lifted up his axe thick trees upon. | 6But all at once with axes now and hammers they go to, And down the carved work thereof they break, and quite undo. | 7They fired have thy sanctuary, and have defil’d the same, By casting down unto the ground the place where dwelt thy name. | 8Thus said they in their hearts, Let us destroy them out of hand: They burnt up all the synagogues of God within the land. | 9Our signs we do not now behold; there is not us among A prophet more, nor any one that knows the time how long. | 10How long, Lord, shall the enemy thus in reproach exclaim? And shall the adversary thus always blaspheme thy name? | 11Thy hand, ev’n thy right hand of might, why dost thou thus draw back? O from thy bosom pluck it out for our deliv’rance sake. | 12For certainly God is my King, ev’n from the times of old, Working in midst of all the earth salvation manifold. | 13The sea, by thy great pow’r, to part asunder thou didst make; And thou the dragons’ heads, O Lord, within the waters brake. | 14The leviathan’s head thou brak’st in pieces, and didst give Him to be meat unto the folk in wilderness that live. | 15Thou clav’st the fountain and the flood, which did with streams abound: Thou dry’dst the mighty waters up unto the very ground. | 16Thine only is the day, O Lord, thine also is the night; And thou alone prepared hast the sun and shining light. | 17By thee the borders of the earth were settled ev’ry where: The summer and the winter both by thee created were. | 18That th’ enemy reproached hath, O keep it in record; And that the foolish people have blasphem’d thy name, O Lord. | 19Unto the multitude do not thy turtle’s soul deliver: The congregation of thy poor do not forget for ever. | 20Unto thy cov’nant have respect; for earth’s dark places be Full of the habitations of horrid cruelty. | 21O let not those that be oppress’d return again with shame: Let those that poor and needy are give praise unto thy name. | 22Do thou, O God, arise and plead the cause that is thine own: Remember how thou art reproach’d still by the foolish one. | 23Do not forget the voice of those that are thine enemies: Of those the tumult ever grows that do against thee rise. | |