A Dirge and a Prayer for Israel, Destroyed by Enemies

A Psalm of Asaph.

^30 (A)“You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; ^(B)you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; ^(C)you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. ³¹ Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. ³² Your sons and your daughters shall be given to ^(D)another people, and your eyes shall look and ^(E)fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be ^[a]no strength in your ^(F)hand. ³³ A nation whom you have not known shall eat ^(G)the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. ³⁴ So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. ³⁵ The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.

³⁶ “The Lord will ^(H)bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and ^(I)there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone. ³⁷ And you shall become ^(J)an^[b] astonishment, a proverb, ^(K)and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you.

^38 (L)“You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for ^(M)the locust shall ^[c]consume it. ³⁹ You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the ^(N)wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. ⁴⁰ You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. ⁴¹ You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for ^(O)they shall go into captivity. ⁴² Locusts shall ^[d]consume all your trees and the produce of your land.

⁴³ “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

⁴⁵ “Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you ^[e]did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. ⁴⁶ And they shall be upon ^(P)you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.

^47 (Q)“Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, ^(R)for the abundance of everything, ⁴⁸ therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in ^(S)hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He ^(T)will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. ^49 (U)The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, ^(V)as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ a nation of fierce countenance, ^(W)which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. ⁵¹ And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you.

⁵² “They shall ^(X)besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you. ^53 (Y)You shall eat the ^[f]fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. ⁵⁴ The ^[g]sensitive and very refined man among you ^(Z)will^[h] be hostile toward his brother, toward ^(AA)the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, ⁵⁵ so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. ⁵⁶ The ^[i]tender and ^[j]delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, ^[k]will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, ⁵⁷ her ^[l]placenta which comes out ^(AB)from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.

⁵⁸ “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear ^(AC)this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, ⁵⁹ then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants ^(AD)extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. ⁶⁰ Moreover He will bring back on you all ^(AE)the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. ⁶¹ Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed. ⁶² You ^(AF)shall be left few in number, whereas you were ^(AG)as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. ⁶³ And it shall be, that just as the Lord ^(AH)rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord ^(AI)will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be ^(AJ)plucked^[m] from off the land which you go to possess.

⁶⁴ “Then the Lord ^(AK)will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and ^(AL)there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. ⁶⁵ And ^(AM)among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; ^(AN)but there the Lord will give you a ^[n]trembling heart, failing eyes, and ^(AO)anguish of soul. ⁶⁶ Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. ^67 (AP)In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and ^(AQ)because of the sight which your eyes see.

⁶⁸ “And the Lord ^(AR)will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ^(AS)‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”