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.