Psalm 81-83

The Message

    I hear this most gentle whisper from One
    I never guessed would speak to me:

^6-7 “I took the world off your shoulders,
    freed you from a life of hard labor.
You called to me in your pain;
    I got you out of a bad place.
I answered you from where the thunder hides,
    I proved you at Meribah Fountain.

^8-10 “Listen, dear ones—get this straight;
    O Israel, don’t take this lightly.
Don’t take up with strange gods,
    don’t worship the popular gods.
I’m God, your God, the very God
    who rescued you from doom in Egypt,
Then fed you all you could eat,
    filled your hungry stomachs.

^11-12 “But my people didn’t listen,
    Israel paid no attention;
So I let go of the reins and told them, ‘Run!
    Do it your own way!’

^13-16 “Oh, dear people, will you listen to me now?
    Israel, will you follow my map?
I’ll make short work of your enemies,
    give your foes the back of my hand.
I’ll send the God-haters cringing like dogs,
    never to be heard from again.
You’ll feast on my fresh-baked bread
    spread with butter and rock-pure honey.”
82 God calls the judges into his courtroom,
    he puts all the judges in the dock.

^2-4 “Enough! You’ve corrupted justice long enough,
    you’ve let the wicked get away with murder.
You’re here to defend the defenseless,
    to make sure that underdogs get a fair break;
Your job is to stand up for the powerless,
    and prosecute all those who exploit them.”

⁵ Ignorant judges! Head-in-the-sand judges!
    They haven’t a clue to what’s going on.
And now everything’s falling apart,
    the world’s coming unglued.

^6-7 “I appointed you judges, each one of you,
    deputies of the High God,
But you’ve betrayed your commission
    and now you’re stripped of your rank, busted.”

⁸ O God, give them what they’ve got coming!
    You’ve got the whole world in your hands!
83 ^1-5 God, don’t shut me out;
    don’t give me the silent treatment, O God.
Your enemies are out there whooping it up,
    the God-haters are living it up;
They’re plotting to do your people in,
    conspiring to rob you of your precious ones.
“Let’s wipe this nation from the face of the earth,”
    they say; “scratch Israel’s name off the books.”
And now they’re putting their heads together,
    making plans to get rid of you.

^6-8     Edom and the Ishmaelites,
    Moab and the Hagrites,
    Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
    Philistia and the Tyrians,
    And now Assyria has joined up,
    Giving muscle to the gang of Lot.

^9-12 Do to them what you did to Midian,
    to Sisera and Jabin at Kishon Brook;
They came to a bad end at Endor,
    nothing but dung for the garden.
Cut down their leaders as you did Oreb and Zeeb,
    their princes to nothings like Zebah and Zalmunna,
With their empty brags, “We’re grabbing it all,
    grabbing God’s gardens for ourselves.”

^13-18 My God! I’ve had it with them!
    Blow them away!
Tumbleweeds in the desert waste,
    charred sticks in the burned-over ground.
Knock the breath right out of them, so they’re gasping
    for breath, gasping, “God.”
Bring them to the end of their rope,
    and leave them there dangling, helpless.
Then they’ll learn your name: “God,”
    the one and only High God on earth.