OEBcth - Psalms - 74

74:1  Why, O God, have you spurned us forever? Why smokes your wrath against the sheep of your pasture?

74:2  Remember the community you purchased of old to become by redemption the tribe of your heritage, Zion, the mountain you made your home.

74:3  Rouse yourself, visit its ruins complete. In the temple the foe has made havoc of all things.

74:4  Like lions your enemies roared through your house, replacing our symbols by signs of their own,

74:5  hacking, like woodsmen who lift axes on thickets of trees,

74:6  smashing with hatchets and hammers all of its carved work together.

74:7  They have set your temple on fire, to the very ground they have outraged the place where lives your name.

74:8  They have said in their heart, “Let us utterly crush them.” They have burned all the houses of God in the land.

74:9  No symbol of ours do we see any more: no prophet is there any more, none is with us who knows how long.

74:10  How long, O God, is the foe to insult? Shall the enemy spurn your name forever?

74:11  Why, O Lord, do you hold back your hand, why keep your right hand in the folds of your robe?

74:12  Yet God is our king from the ancient days, in the midst of the earth working deeds of salvation.

74:13  It was you who did cleave the sea by your might, and shatter the heads of the ocean monsters.

74:14  It was you who did crush many-headed Leviathan, and give him as food to the beasts of the wilderness.

74:15  It was you who did cleave the fountains and torrents; it was you who did dry the perennial streams.

74:16  Yours is the day; yours, too, is the night, it was you who did establish the sun and the star.

74:17  It was you who did fix all the borders of earth: summer and winter it’s you who have made them.

74:18  Yet, for all this, the foe has insulted you, Lord, and a nation of fools has reviled your name.

74:19  Do not give your dove to the beasts, do not forget your afflicted forever.

74:20  Look to the sleek ones - how full they are: the dark places of earth are the dwellings of violence.

74:21  O let not the downtrodden turn back ashamed: let the poor and the needy sing praise to your name.

74:22  Arise, God, and defend your cause: remember how fools all the day insult you.

74:23  Do not forget the uproar of your enemies, the din of your foes that ascends evermore.