• 1 O God, why have you cast us off for ever? why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

  • 2 Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old; the rod of your inheritance, which you have redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein you have dwelled.

  • 3 Lift up your feet to the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy has done wickedly in the sanctuary.

  • 4 Your enemies roar in the middle of your congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.

  • 5 A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes on the thick trees.

  • 6 But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.

  • 7 They have cast fire into your sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of your name to the ground.

  • 8 They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.

  • 9 We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knows how long.

  • 10 O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme your name for ever?

  • 11 Why withdraw you your hand, even your right hand? pluck it out of your bosom.

  • 12 For God is my King of old, working salvation in the middle of the earth.

  • 13 You did divide the sea by your strength: you brake the heads of the dragons in the waters.

  • 14 You brake the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

  • 15 You did split the fountain and the flood: you dried up mighty rivers.

  • 16 The day is yours, the night also is yours: you have prepared the light and the sun.

  • 17 You have set all the borders of the earth: you have made summer and winter.

  • 18 Remember this, that the enemy has reproached, O LORD, and that the foolish people have blasphemed your name.

  • 19 O deliver not the soul of your turtledove to the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of your poor for ever.

  • 20 Have respect to the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.

  • 21 O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the poor and needy praise your name.

  • 22 Arise, O God, plead your own cause: remember how the foolish man reproaches you daily.

  • 23 Forget not the voice of your enemies: the tumult of those that rise up against you increases continually.