Chapter 74

¹{An instruction: of Asaph.} Why, O God, hast thou cast off for ever? [why] doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? ²Remember thine assembly, which thou hast purchased of old, which thou hast redeemed [to be] the portion of thine inheritance, this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt. ³Lift up thy steps unto the perpetual desolations: everything in the sanctuary hath the enemy destroyed. ⁴Thine adversaries roar in the midst of thy place of assembly; they set up their signs [for] signs. ⁵[A man] was known as he could lift up axes in the thicket of trees; ⁶And now they break down its carved work altogether, with hatchets and hammers. ⁷They have set on fire thy sanctuary, they have profaned the habitation of thy name to the ground. ⁸They said in their heart, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all God`s places of assembly in the land. ⁹We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long. ¹⁰How long, O God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy contemn thy name for ever? ¹¹Why withdrawest thou thy hand, and thy right hand? [pluck it] out of thy bosom: consume [them]. ¹²But God is my king of old, accomplishing deliverances in the midst of the earth. ¹³Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength; thou didst break the heads of the monsters on the waters: ¹⁴Thou didst break in pieces the heads of leviathan, thou gavest him to be meat to those that people the desert. ¹⁵Thou didst cleave fountain and torrent, thou driedst up ever-flowing rivers. ¹⁶The day is thine, the night also is thine; thou hast prepared the moon and the sun: ¹⁷Thou hast set all the borders of the earth; summer and winter -- thou didst form them. ¹⁸Remember this, that an enemy hath reproached Jehovah, and a foolish people have contemned thy name. ¹⁹Give not up the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the wild beast; forget not the troop of thine afflicted for ever. ²⁰Have respect unto the covenant; for the dark places of the earth are full of the dwellings of violence. ²¹Oh let not the oppressed one return ashamed; let the afflicted and needy praise thy name. ²²Rise up, O God, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee all the day; ²³Forget not the voice of thine adversaries: the tumult of those that rise up against thee ascendeth continually.