0For the choirmaster. Of the sons of Korah. A maskil.
Remembering God’s Past Deliverances
1O God, with our ears we have heard, our fathers have recounted to us the work you worked in their days, in the days of old.
2You—with your hand you dispossessed nations and planted them; you brought disaster on peoples and sent them out.
3For not by their sword did they take possession of the land, and their own arm did not save them; but your right hand and your arm and the light of your face, for you favored them.
4You are he, my King, O God; command the deliverances of Jacob.
5Through you we push down our foes; through your name we trample those who rise against us.
6For not in my bow do I trust, and my sword does not save me.
7For you have saved us from our foes, and those who hate us you have put to shame.
8In God we have boasted all the day, and your name we will give thanks to forever. Selah.
A Complaint of Present Defeat
9Yet you have rejected and humiliated us, and you do not go out with our armies.
10You make us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have plundered for themselves.
11You give us up like sheep for eating, and among the nations you have scattered us.
12You sell your people for no wealth, and you have not grown rich by their price.
13You make us a reproach to our neighbors, mockery and derision to those around us.
14You make us a byword 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.
16because of the voice of the one who taunts and reviles, because of the enemy and the avenger.
A Protest of Faithfulness
17All this has come upon us, yet we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant.
18Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps swerved from your path,
19though you crushed us in the place of jackals and covered us over with deep darkness.
20If we had forgotten the name of our God and spread out our palms to a foreign god,
21would not God search this out? For he knows the hidden things of the heart.
22Yet for your sake we are killed all the day; we are counted as sheep for slaughter.
Awake, O Lord, and Help Us
23Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake! Do not reject us forever.
24Why do you hide your face, forgetting our affliction and our oppression?
25For our life has sunk down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground.
26Arise, be our help, and redeem us for the sake of your loyal love.