Psalms 74
An instruction: of Asaph.
1. Why, O God, hast thou cast off for ever? [why] doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?
2. Remember 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.
3. Lift up thy steps unto the perpetual desolations: everything in the sanctuary hath the enemy destroyed.
4. Thine 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;
6. And now they break down its carved work altogether, with hatchets and hammers.
7. They have set on fire thy sanctuary, they have profaned the habitation of thy name to the ground.
8. They said in their heart, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all *God's places of assembly in the land.
9. We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.
10. How long, O God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy contemn thy name for ever?
11. Why withdrawest thou thy hand, and thy right hand? [pluck it] out of thy bosom: consume [them] .
12. But God is my king of old, accomplishing deliverances in the midst of the earth.
13. *Thou* didst divide the sea by thy strength; thou didst break the heads of the monsters on the waters:
14. *Thou* didst break in pieces the heads of leviathan, thou gavest him to be meat to those that people the desert.
15. *Thou* didst cleave fountain and torrent, *thou* driedst up ever-flowing rivers.
16. The day is thine, the night also is thine; *thou* hast prepared the moon and the sun:
17. *Thou* hast set all the borders of the earth; summer and winter--*thou* didst form them.
18. Remember this, that an enemy hath reproached Jehovah, and a foolish people have contemned thy name.
19. Give not up the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the wild beast; forget not the troop of thine afflicted for ever.
20. Have respect unto the covenant; for the dark places of the earth are full of the dwellings of violence.
21. Oh let not the oppressed one return ashamed; let the afflicted and needy praise thy name.
22. Rise up, O God, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee all the day;
23. Forget not the voice of thine adversaries: the tumult of those that rise up against thee ascendeth continually.