⁴ You keep my eyelids from closing;
    I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
⁵ I consider the days of old,
    and remember the years of long ago.
⁶ I commune^[a] with my heart in the night;
    I meditate and search my spirit:^[b]
7 ‘Will the Lord spurn for ever,
    and never again be favourable?
⁸ Has his steadfast love ceased for ever?
    Are his promises at an end for all time?
⁹ Has God forgotten to be gracious?
    Has he in anger shut up his compassion?’Selah
¹⁰ And I say, ‘It is my grief
    that the right hand of the Most High has changed.’

¹¹ I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;
    I will remember your wonders of old.
¹² I will meditate on all your work,
    and muse on your mighty deeds.
¹³ Your way, O God, is holy.
    What god is so great as our God?
¹⁴ You are the God who works wonders;
    you have displayed your might among the peoples.
¹⁵ With your strong arm you redeemed your people,
    the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.Selah

¹⁶ When the waters saw you, O God,
    when the waters saw you, they were afraid;
    the very deep trembled.
¹⁷ The clouds poured out water;
    the skies thundered;
    your arrows flashed on every side.
¹⁸ The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
    your lightnings lit up the world;
    the earth trembled and shook.
¹⁹ Your way was through the sea,
    your path, through the mighty waters;
    yet your footprints were unseen.
²⁰ You led your people like a flock
    by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

⁵ He established a decree in Jacob,
    and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
    to teach to their children;
⁶ that the next generation might know them,
    the children yet unborn,
and rise up and tell them to their children,
⁷     so that they should set their hope in God,
and not forget the works of God,
    but keep his commandments;
⁸ and that they should not be like their ancestors,
    a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
    whose spirit was not faithful to God.

⁹ The Ephraimites, armed with^[a] the bow,
    turned back on the day of battle.
¹⁰ They did not keep God’s covenant,
    but refused to walk according to his law.
¹¹ They forgot what he had done,
    and the miracles that he had shown them.
¹² In the sight of their ancestors he worked marvels
    in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.
¹³ He divided the sea and let them pass through it,
    and made the waters stand like a heap.
¹⁴ In the daytime he led them with a cloud,
    and all night long with a fiery light.
¹⁵ He split rocks open in the wilderness,
    and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
¹⁶ He made streams come out of the rock,
    and caused waters to flow down like rivers.

¹⁷ Yet they sinned still more against him,
    rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
¹⁸ They tested God in their heart
    by demanding the food they craved.
¹⁹ They spoke against God, saying,
    ‘Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
²⁰ Even though he struck the rock so that water gushed out
    and torrents overflowed,
can he also give bread,
    or provide meat for his people?’

²¹ Therefore, when the Lord heard, he was full of rage;
    a fire was kindled against Jacob,
    his anger mounted against Israel,
²² because they had no faith in God,
    and did not trust his saving power.
²³ Yet he commanded the skies above,
    and opened the doors of heaven;
²⁴ he rained down on them manna to eat,
    and gave them the grain of heaven.
²⁵ Mortals ate of the bread of angels;
    he sent them food in abundance.
²⁶ He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
    and by his power he led out the south wind;
²⁷ he rained flesh upon them like dust,
    winged birds like the sand of the seas;
²⁸ he let them fall within their camp,
    all around their dwellings.
²⁹ And they ate and were well filled,
    for he gave them what they craved.
³⁰ But before they had satisfied their craving,
    while the food was still in their mouths,
³¹ the anger of God rose against them
    and he killed the strongest of them,
    and laid low the flower of Israel.

³² In spite of all this they still sinned;
    they did not believe in his wonders.
³³ So he made their days vanish like a breath,
    and their years in terror.
³⁴ When he killed them, they sought for him;
    they repented and sought God earnestly.
³⁵ They remembered that God was their rock,
    the Most High God their redeemer.
³⁶ But they flattered him with their mouths;
    they lied to him with their tongues.
³⁷ Their heart was not steadfast towards him;
    they were not true to his covenant.
³⁸ Yet he, being compassionate,
    forgave their iniquity,
    and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
    and did not stir up all his wrath.
³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh,
    a wind that passes and does not come again.
⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
    and grieved him in the desert!
⁴¹ They tested God again and again,
    and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They did not keep in mind his power,
    or the day when he redeemed them from the foe;
⁴³ when he displayed his signs in Egypt,
    and his miracles in the fields of Zoan.
⁴⁴ He turned their rivers to blood,
    so that they could not drink of their streams.
⁴⁵ He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them,
    and frogs, which destroyed them.
⁴⁶ He gave their crops to the caterpillar,
    and the fruit of their labour to the locust.
⁴⁷ He destroyed their vines with hail,
    and their sycomores with frost.
⁴⁸ He gave over their cattle to the hail,
    and their flocks to thunderbolts.
⁴⁹ He let loose on them his fierce anger,
    wrath, indignation, and distress,
    a company of destroying angels.
⁵⁰ He made a path for his anger;
    he did not spare them from death,
    but gave their lives over to the plague.
⁵¹ He struck all the firstborn in Egypt,
    the first issue of their strength in the tents of Ham.
⁵² Then he led out his people like sheep,
    and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
⁵³ He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid;
    but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
⁵⁴ And he brought them to his holy hill,
    to the mountain that his right hand had won.
⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them;
    he apportioned them for a possession
    and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶ Yet they tested the Most High God,
    and rebelled against him.
    They did not observe his decrees,
⁵⁷ but turned away and were faithless like their ancestors;
    they twisted like a treacherous bow.
⁵⁸ For they provoked him to anger with their high places;
    they moved him to jealousy with their idols.
⁵⁹ When God heard, he was full of wrath,
    and he utterly rejected Israel.
⁶⁰ He abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh,
    the tent where he dwelt among mortals,
⁶¹ and delivered his power to captivity,
    his glory to the hand of the foe.
⁶² He gave his people to the sword,
    and vented his wrath on his heritage.
⁶³ Fire devoured their young men,
    and their girls had no marriage song.
⁶⁴ Their priests fell by the sword,
    and their widows made no lamentation.
⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
    like a warrior shouting because of wine.
⁶⁶ He put his adversaries to rout;
    he put them to everlasting disgrace.

⁶⁷ He rejected the tent of Joseph,
    he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
⁶⁸ but he chose the tribe of Judah,
    Mount Zion, which he loves.
⁶⁹ He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
    like the earth, which he has founded for ever.
⁷⁰ He chose his servant David,
    and took him from the sheepfolds;
⁷¹ from tending the nursing ewes he brought him
    to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
    of Israel, his inheritance.
⁷² With upright heart he tended them,
    and guided them with skilful hand.

⁴ Your foes have roared within your holy place;
    they set up their emblems there.
⁵ At the upper entrance they hacked
    the wooden trellis with axes.^[a]
6 And then, with hatchets and hammers,
    they smashed all its carved work.
⁷ They set your sanctuary on fire;
    they desecrated the dwelling-place of your name,
    bringing it to the ground.
⁸ They said to themselves, ‘We will utterly subdue them’;
    they burned all the meeting-places of God in the land.

⁹ We do not see our emblems;
    there is no longer any prophet,
    and there is no one among us who knows how long.
¹⁰ How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
    Is the enemy to revile your name for ever?
¹¹ Why do you hold back your hand;
    why do you keep your hand in^[b] your bosom?

¹² Yet God my King is from of old,
    working salvation in the earth.
¹³ You divided the sea by your might;
    you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.
¹⁴ You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
    you gave him as food^[c] for the creatures of the wilderness.
¹⁵ You cut openings for springs and torrents;
    you dried up ever-flowing streams.
¹⁶ Yours is the day, yours also the night;
    you established the luminaries^[d] and the sun.
¹⁷ You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
    you made summer and winter.

¹⁸ Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,
    and an impious people reviles your name.
¹⁹ Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals;
    do not forget the life of your poor for ever.

²⁰ Have regard for your^[e] covenant,
    for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.
²¹ Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;
    let the poor and needy praise your name.
²² Rise up, O God, plead your cause;
    remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.
²³ Do not forget the clamour of your foes,
    the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.

⁵ How long, O Lord? Will you be angry for ever?
    Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?
⁶ Pour out your anger on the nations
    that do not know you,
and on the kingdoms
    that do not call on your name.
⁷ For they have devoured Jacob
    and laid waste his habitation.

⁸ Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors;
    let your compassion come speedily to meet us,
    for we are brought very low.
⁹ Help us, O God of our salvation,
    for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and forgive our sins,
    for your name’s sake.
¹⁰ Why should the nations say,
    ‘Where is their God?’
Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants
    be known among the nations before our eyes.

¹¹ Let the groans of the prisoners come before you;
    according to your great power preserve those doomed to die.
¹² Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbours
    the taunts with which they taunted you, O Lord!
¹³ Then we your people, the flock of your pasture,
    will give thanks to you for ever;
    from generation to generation we will recount your praise.

³ Restore us, O God;
    let your face shine, that we may be saved.

⁴ O Lord God of hosts,
    how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
⁵ You have fed them with the bread of tears,
    and given them tears to drink in full measure.
⁶ You make us the scorn^[a] of our neighbours;
    our enemies laugh among themselves.

⁷ Restore us, O God of hosts;
    let your face shine, that we may be saved.

⁸ You brought a vine out of Egypt;
    you drove out the nations and planted it.
⁹ You cleared the ground for it;
    it took deep root and filled the land.
¹⁰ The mountains were covered with its shade,
    the mighty cedars with its branches;
¹¹ it sent out its branches to the sea,
    and its shoots to the River.
¹² Why then have you broken down its walls,
    so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
¹³ The boar from the forest ravages it,
    and all that move in the field feed on it.

¹⁴ Turn again, O God of hosts;
    look down from heaven, and see;
have regard for this vine,
¹⁵     the stock that your right hand planted.^[b]
16 They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down;^[c]
    may they perish at the rebuke of your countenance.
¹⁷ But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
    the one whom you made strong for yourself.
¹⁸ Then we will never turn back from you;
    give us life, and we will call on your name.

¹⁹ Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
    let your face shine, that we may be saved.