Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

An instruction: of Asaph.

74 Why, O God, hast thou cast off for ever? [why] doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?

² Remember thine assembly, which thou hast purchased of old, which thou hast redeemed [to be] the portion of thine inheritance, this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.

³ Lift up thy steps unto the perpetual desolations: everything in the sanctuary hath the enemy destroyed.

⁴ Thine adversaries roar in the midst of thy place of assembly; they set up their signs [for] signs.

⁵ [A man] was known as he could lift up axes in the thicket of trees;

⁶ And now they break down its carved work altogether, with hatchets and hammers.

⁷ They have set on fire thy sanctuary, they have profaned the habitation of thy name to the ground.

⁸ They said in their heart, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all God's places of assembly in the land.

⁹ We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.

¹⁰ How long, O God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy contemn thy name for ever?

¹¹ Why withdrawest thou thy hand, and thy right hand? [pluck it] out of thy bosom: consume [them].

¹² But God is my king of old, accomplishing deliverances in the midst of the earth.

¹³ *Thou* didst divide the sea by thy strength; thou didst break the heads of the monsters on the waters:

¹⁴ *Thou* didst break in pieces the heads of leviathan, thou gavest him to be meat to those that people the desert.

¹⁵ *Thou* didst cleave fountain and torrent, *thou* driedst up ever-flowing rivers.

¹⁶ The day is thine, the night also is thine; *thou* hast prepared the moon and the sun:

¹⁷ *Thou* hast set all the borders of the earth; summer and winter—*thou* didst form them.

¹⁸ Remember this, that an enemy hath reproached Jehovah, and a foolish people have contemned thy name.

¹⁹ Give not up the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the wild beast; forget not the troop of thine afflicted for ever.

²⁰ Have respect unto the covenant; for the dark places of the earth are full of the dwellings of violence.

²¹ Oh let not the oppressed one return ashamed; let the afflicted and needy praise thy name.

²² Rise up, O God, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee all the day;

²³ Forget not the voice of thine adversaries: the tumult of those that rise up against thee ascendeth continually.

²⁴ Therefore as a tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and dry grass sinketh down in the flame, their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; for they have rejected the law of Jehovah of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵ Therefore is the anger of Jehovah kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand against them and hath smitten them; and the mountains trembled, and their carcases are become as dung in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

²⁶ And he will lift up a banner to the nations afar off, and will hiss for one from the end of the earth; and behold, it will come rapidly [and] lightly.

²⁷ None among them is weary, none stumbleth; they slumber not, nor sleep; none hath the girdle of his loins loosed, nor the thong of his sandals broken;

²⁸ their arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs are reckoned as the flint, and their wheels as a whirlwind.

²⁹ Their roaring is like a lioness, they roar as the young lions; yea, they growl, and snatch the prey, and carry it away safe, and there is none to deliver;

³⁰ and they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. And if one look upon the earth, behold darkness [and] distress, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.

⁴⁴ Our fathers had the tent of the testimony in the wilderness, as he that spoke to Moses commanded to make it according to the model which he had seen;

⁴⁵ which also our fathers, receiving from their predecessors, brought in with Joshua when they entered into possession of [the lands of] the nations, whom God drove out from [the] face of our fathers, until the days of David;

⁴⁶ who found favour before God, and asked to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob;

⁴⁷ but Solomon built him a house.

⁴⁸ But the Most High dwells not in [places] made with hands; as says the prophet,

⁴⁹ The heaven [is] my throne and the earth the footstool of my feet: what house will ye build me? saith [the] Lord, or where [is the] place of my rest?

⁵⁰ has not my hand made all these things?

⁵¹ O stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, *ye* do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers, *ye* also.

⁵² Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain those who announced beforehand concerning the coming of the Just One, of whom *ye* have now become deliverers up and murderers!

⁵³ who have received the law as ordained by [the] ministry of angels, and have not kept [it].