Psalm 74:1-23
(Meditative; of Asaph’s.)
74 Why do you permanently repudiate us, God,why is your anger at the sheep you tended so smoking hot?
2 Remember your congregation you acquired of old,claimed as the tribe of your estate,The mountain of Sion on which you dwell,
3 which your footsteps have exalted to perpetual sublimity.An enemy has done everything bad to the holy things.
4 Your foemen roared like wild beasts within your meeting-place,set their ensigns as signs.
5 It shows like one who brings axes in upward into a thicket of wood,
6 And now they are battering its carvings one and all with ax and crowbar.
7 They have set fire to your sanctuary,desecrated the abode of your name down to the ground.
8 They said to themselves “We will overbear them one and all, will burn all meeting-places for divine service in the country.”
9 We have not seen our signs; there is no longer any prophet;we have nobody with us who knows how far it will go.
10 How long, God, shall a foe offer insults?Shall an enemy eternally treat your name with contempt?
11 Why do you draw back your handand imprison your right hand in the fold of your robe?
12 But God is my King from of old,who does saving work in the midst of the earth.
13 It was you that by your might tore sea with convulsionsand broke monsters’ heads to pieces over the water;
14 It was you that splintered Leviathan’s heads,giving him for food to the race of wildcats;
15 It was you that opened up spring and arroyo,it was you that dried out perennial rivers.
16 Yours is day, yours too is night;it was you that installed heavenly orb and sun.
17 It was you that set all the boundaries of earth;summer and winter it was you that framed.
18 Remember this; an enemy has been taunting Jehovah,an uncivilized people have treated your name with contempt.
19 Do not give up to wild beasts a soul that gives its thanks to you;do not permanently forget the life of your sufferers.
20 Look at your creatures filling with viciousness,for earth is the field of outrage.
21 Let a downtrodden man not come back humiliated;let a sufferer and a needy man praise your name.
22 Stand up, God, defend your rights!remember the insults you have had from rascals all day!
23 Do not forget the voice of your foemen,the hubbub of those who are out against you, that goes up all the time!
