Psalm 74

¹O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever?

Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?

²Remember thy congregation, which thou hast gotten of old,

Which thou hast redeemed to be the tribe of thine inheritance;

And mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.

³Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual ruins,

All the evil that the enemy hath done in the sanctuary.

⁴Thine adversaries have roared in the midst of thine assembly;

They have set up their ensigns for signs.

⁵They seemed as men that lifted up

Axes upon a thicket of trees.

⁶And now all the carved work thereof

They break down with hatchet and hammers.

⁷They have set thy sanctuary on fire;

They have profaned the dwelling-place of thy name by casting it to the ground.

⁸They said in their heart, Let us make havoc of them altogether:

They have burned up all the synagogues of God 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 blaspheme thy name for ever?

¹¹Why drawest thou back thy hand, even thy right hand?

Pluck it out of thy bosom and consume them.

¹²Yet God is my King of old,

Working salvation in the midst of the earth.

¹³Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength:

Thou brakest the heads of the sea-monsters in the waters.

¹⁴Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces;

Thou gavest him to be food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

¹⁵Thou didst cleave fountain and flood:

Thou driedst up mighty rivers.

¹⁶The day is thine, the night also is thine:

Thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

¹⁷Thou hast set all the borders of the earth:

Thou hast made summer and winter.

¹⁸Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O Jehovah,

And that a foolish people hath blasphemed thy name.

¹⁹Oh deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the wild beast:

Forget not the life of thy poor for ever.

²⁰Have respect unto the covenant;

For the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence.

²¹Oh let not the oppressed return ashamed:

Let the poor and needy praise thy name.

²²Arise, 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.