⁰A poem of Asaph.

¹Why, God, have you cast us off for all time? Does your nostril smoke against the flock of your pasture?

²Remember your congregation, which you acquired of old, which you redeemed as the tribe of your inheritance, this mountain of Zion where you have dwelt.

³Lift up your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has done harm to everything in the holy place.

⁴Your opponents roared in the midst of your meeting place; they set up their signs as signs.

⁵It became known, like one who brings axes up into a thicket of trees.

⁶And now they strike down her carvings all together with axe and hammers.

⁷They sent your sanctuary into the fire; they profaned the dwelling place of your name down to the land.

⁸They said in their heart, Let us oppress them together; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

⁹We have not seen our signs; there is no prophet any longer, and no one with us knows how long.

¹⁰How long, God, will the opponent taunt? Will the enemy spurn your name for all time?

¹¹Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? From the midst of your bosom, finish it!

¹²Yet God is my king from of old, working deliverances in the midst of the land.

¹³You split the sea by your strength; you shattered the heads of the sea serpents on the waters.

¹⁴You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave it as food to the people, to the desert-dwellers.

¹⁵You broke open spring and wadi; you dried up ever-flowing rivers.

¹⁶The day is yours, and the night is yours too; you established the light and the sun.

¹⁷You fixed all the boundaries of the land; summer and winter, you formed them.

¹⁸Remember this, Yahweh: the enemy taunted, and a foolish people spurned your name.

¹⁹Do not give your ring-dove's being to the living beast; do not forget the life of your poor for all time.

²⁰Look to the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the homes of violence.

²¹Do not let the crushed return humiliated; let the poor and needy praise your name.

²²Rise, God, contend in your dispute; remember your reproach from the fool all the day.

²³Do not forget the sound of your opponents, the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually.