Psalm 44 New King James Version

Redemption Remembered in Present Dishonor

To the Chief Musician. A ^(A)Contemplation^[a] of the sons of Korah.

44 We have heard with our ears, O God,
^(B)Our fathers have told us,
The deeds You did in their days,
In days of old:
²^(C)You drove out the ^[b]nations with Your hand,
But them You planted;
You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out.
³For ^(D)they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword,
Nor did their own arm save them;
But it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance,
^(E)Because You favored them.

⁴^(F)You are my King, ^[c]O God;
^[d]Command victories for Jacob.
⁵Through You ^(G)we will push down our enemies;
Through Your name we will trample those who rise up against us.
⁶For ^(H)I will not trust in my bow,
Nor shall my sword save me.
⁷But You have saved us from our enemies,
And have put to shame those who hated us.
⁸^(I)In God we boast all day long,
And praise Your name forever. Selah

⁹But ^(J)You have cast us off and put us to shame,
And You do not go out with our armies.
¹⁰You make us ^(K)turn back from the enemy,
And those who hate us have taken ^[e]spoil for themselves.
¹¹^(L)You have given us up like sheep intended for food,
And have ^(M)scattered us among the nations.
¹²^(N)You sell Your people for next to nothing,
And are not enriched by selling them.

¹³^(O)You make us a reproach to our neighbors,
A scorn and a derision to those all around us.
¹⁴^(P)You make us a byword among the nations,
^(Q)A shaking of the head among the peoples.
¹⁵My dishonor is continually before me,
And the shame of my face has covered me,
¹⁶Because of the voice of him who reproaches and reviles,
^(R)Because of the enemy and the avenger.

¹⁷^(S)All this has come upon us;
But we have not forgotten You,
Nor have we dealt falsely with Your covenant.
¹⁸Our heart has not turned back,
^(T)Nor have our steps departed from Your way;
¹⁹But You have severely broken us in ^(U)the place of jackals,
And covered us ^(V)with the shadow of death.

²⁰If we had forgotten the name of our God,
Or ^(W)stretched^[f] out our hands to a foreign god,
²¹^(X)Would not God search this out?
For He knows the secrets of the heart.
²²^(Y)Yet for Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

²³^(Z)Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lord?
Arise! Do not cast us off forever.
²⁴^(AA)Why do You hide Your face,
And forget our affliction and our oppression?
²⁵For ^(AB)our soul is bowed down to the ^[g]dust;
Our body clings to the ground.
²⁶Arise for our help,
And redeem us for Your mercies’ sake.