Psalm 74

Arise, O God, Defend Your Cause

A Maskil of Asaph.

¹O God, why do you cast us off forever?

Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

²Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old,

which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!

Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.

³Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;

the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!

⁴Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place;

they set up their own signs for signs.

⁵They were like those who swing axes

in a forest of trees.

⁶And all its carved wood

they broke down with hatchets and hammers.

⁷They set your sanctuary on fire;

they profaned the dwelling place of your name,

bringing it down to the ground.

⁸They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;

they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

⁹We do not see our signs;

there is no longer any prophet,

and there is none among us who knows how long.

¹⁰How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?

Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

¹¹Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?

Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!

¹²Yet God my King is from of old,

working salvation in the midst of the earth.

¹³You divided the sea by your might;

you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.

¹⁴You crushed the heads of Leviathan;

you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

¹⁵You split open springs and brooks;

you dried up ever-flowing streams.

¹⁶Yours is the day, yours also the night;

you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.

¹⁷You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;

you have made summer and winter.

¹⁸Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,

and a foolish people reviles your name.

¹⁹Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts;

do not forget the life of your poor forever.

²⁰Have regard for the covenant,

for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.

²¹Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame;

let the poor and needy praise your name.

²²Arise, O God, defend your cause;

remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!

²³Do not forget the clamor of your foes,

the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!