Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

74 Why, O God, have you rejected us forever?
Why does your anger smoke
against the sheep of your pasture?
² Remember your congregation that you bought long ago,
when you redeemed the tribe of your inheritance.
Remember Mount Zion^[b] where you have dwelt.
³ Lift your steps to the perpetual ruins,
to all that the enemy has ruined in the sanctuary.
⁴ Your enemies have roared in the midst of your meeting place;
they have set up their signs for signs.
⁵ They are^[c] known to be like those who wield^[d]
axes in a thicket of trees.
⁶ And now^[e] its^[f] carved works altogether
they have smashed with axe and hammer.
⁷ They have set fire to your sanctuary.
They have defiled to the ground,
the dwelling place for your name.
⁸ They have said in their heart,
“We will completely^[g] oppress them.”
They burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
⁹ We do not see our signs,
and there is no longer a prophet.
No one with us knows how long.
¹⁰ How long, O God, will the adversary taunt?
Will the enemy treat your name with contempt forever?
¹¹ Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand?
Take it from your bosom;^[h] destroy them!
¹² But God has been my king from long ago,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
¹³ You split open the sea by your strength;
You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
¹⁴ You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food to the desert dwelling creatures.
¹⁵ You split open spring and wadi.^[i]
You dried up ever-flowing rivers.
¹⁶ Yours is the day, yours is the night also.
You established light and the sun.
¹⁷ You defined^[j] all the boundaries of the earth;
Summer and winter—you formed them.
¹⁸ O Yahweh, remember this: the enemy taunts,
and foolish people treat your name with contempt.
¹⁹ Do not give to beasts the life of your dove;
do not ever forget the life of your afflicted ones.
²⁰ Have regard for the covenant,
because the dark places of the land are full of
the haunts of violence.
²¹ Do not let the oppressed turn back humiliated;
let the poor and needy praise your name.
²² Rise up, O God, plead your cause;
remember the reproaching of you by the foolish all day long.^[k]
23 Do not forget the sound of your adversaries,
the roar of those rising up against you ascending continually.

²⁴ Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,
    and dry grass sinks down in the flame,
so their root will become like the stench,
    and their blossom will go up like the dust.
For they have rejected the instruction of Yahweh of hosts,
    and they have treated the word of the holy one of Israel with contempt.
²⁵ Therefore Yahweh’s wrath was kindled^[a] against his people,
    and he stretched out his hand against them^[b] and struck them,^[c]
and the mountains quaked,
    and their corpses^[d] were like refuse in the middle of the streets.

In all of this his anger has not turned back,
    and still his hand is stretched out.
²⁶ And he will raise a signal for a nation^[e] from afar,
and he will whistle for it from the end of the earth.
And look! It comes quickly, swiftly!
²⁷ None is weary,
    and none among him stumbles;
    none slumbers and none sleeps.
And no loincloth on his waist is opened,
    and no thong of his sandals is drawn away.
²⁸ Whose arrows are sharp,
    and all of his bows are bent.
The hoofs of his horses are reckoned like flint,
    and his wheels like the storm wind.
²⁹ His roaring is like the lion,
    and he roars like young lions.
And he growls and seizes his prey,
    and he carries it off,
    and not one can rescue it.
³⁰ And he will roar over him on that day
    like the roaring of the sea,
and if one looks to the land, look! Darkness! Distress!
    And the light grows dark with its^[f] clouds.