⁰To the choirmaster. To the children of Korah. A poem.

¹God, in our ears we have heard; our fathers have recounted to us a work you made in their days, in the days of old.

²You, by your hand, dispossessed nations and planted them; you did harm to peoples and sent them away.

³For not by their sword did they take possession of the land, and their arm did not save them; but your right hand and your arm and the light of your face, for you took pleasure in them.

⁴You yourself are my king, O God; command the deliverances of Jacob.

⁵Through you we gore our enemies; in your name we trample those who rise against us.

⁶For I will not trust in my bow, and my sword will not save me.

⁷For you have saved us from our enemies, and those who hate us you have put to shame.

⁸In God we have praised all the day, and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah.

⁹Yet you have cast us off and humiliated us, and you do not go out with our armies.

¹⁰You turn us backward from the enemy, and those who hate us have plundered for themselves.

¹¹You have made us like sheep for food, and among the nations you have scattered us.

¹²You have sold your people for no wealth, and you have not increased anything by their prices.

¹³You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and a derision to those around us.

¹⁴You have made us a proverb among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples.

¹⁵All the day my disgrace is before me, and the shame of my face has covered me,

¹⁶from the sound of one who taunts and one who reviles, from the face of the enemy and the avenger.

¹⁷All this has come upon us, yet we have not forgotten you, and we have not dealt falsely with your covenant.

¹⁸Our heart has not turned back, and our steps have not bent away from your way.

¹⁹though you crushed us down in a place of jackals and covered over us with deep darkness.

²⁰If we had forgotten the name of our God and spread out our palms to a foreign god,

²¹Would God not search this out? For he knows the secrets of the heart.

²²For on your account we are killed all day long; we are reckoned like sheep for slaughter.

²³Awake! Why do you sleep, my Lord? Wake up! Do not reject us forever.

²⁴Why do you hide your face and forget our affliction and our oppression?

²⁵For our being has sunk down to the dust; our belly clings to the land.

²⁶Rise up as a help for us, and redeem us for the sake of your loyal love.