Psalm 74

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 acquired long ago,

which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.

Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.

³Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;

the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.

⁴Your foes have roared within your holy place;

they set up their emblems there.

⁵At the upper entrance they hacked

the wooden trellis with axes.

⁶And then, with hatchets and hammers,

they smashed all its carved work.

⁷They set your sanctuary on fire;

they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,

bringing it 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 emblems;

there is no longer any prophet,

and there is no one 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;

why do you keep your hand in your bosom?

¹²Yet God my King is from of old,

working salvation in the earth.

¹³You divided the sea by your might;

you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.

¹⁴You crushed the heads of Leviathan;

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

¹⁵You cut openings for springs and torrents;

you dried up ever-flowing streams.

¹⁶Yours is the day, yours also the night;

you established the luminaries and the sun.

¹⁷You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;

you made summer and winter.

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

and an impious people reviles your name.

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

do not forget the life of your poor forever.

²⁰Have regard for your covenant,

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

²¹Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;

let the poor and needy praise your name.

²²Rise up, O God, plead your cause;

remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.

²³Do not forget the clamor of your foes,

the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.