33 Therefore he consumed their days in vanity,
and their years in terror.
34 When he killed them, then they inquired after him.
They returned and sought God earnestly.
35 They remembered that God was their rock,
the Most High God, their redeemer.
36 But they flattered him with their mouth,
and lied to him with their tongue.
37 For their heart was not right with him,
neither were they faithful in his covenant.
38 But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them.
Yes, many times he turned his anger away,
and didn’t stir up all his wrath.
39 He remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again.
40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness,
and grieved him in the desert!
41 They turned again and tempted God,
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They didn’t remember his hand,
nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;
43 how he set his signs in Egypt,
his wonders in the field of Zoan,
44 he turned their rivers into blood,
and their streams, so that they could not drink.
45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them;
and frogs, which destroyed them.
46 He also gave their increase to the caterpillar,
and their labor to the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail,
their sycamore fig trees with frost.
48 He also gave over their livestock to the hail,
and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
49 He threw on them the fierceness of his anger,
wrath, indignation, and trouble,
and a band of angels of evil.
50 He made a path for his anger.
He didn’t spare their soul from death,
but gave their life over to the pestilence,
51 and struck all the firstborn in Egypt,
the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52 But he led out his own people like sheep,
and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid,
but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 He brought them to the border of his sanctuary,
to this mountain, which his right hand had taken.
55 He also drove out the nations before them,
allotted them for an inheritance by line,
and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
56 Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God,
and didn’t keep his testimonies,
57 but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers.
They were twisted like a deceitful bow.
58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places,
and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
59 When God heard this, he was angry,
and greatly abhorred Israel,
60 so that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh,
the tent which he placed among men,
61 and delivered his strength into captivity,
his glory into the adversary’s hand.
62 He also gave his people over to the sword,
and was angry with his inheritance.
63 Fire devoured their young men.
Their virgins had no wedding song.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows couldn’t weep.
65 Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep,
like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.
66 He struck his adversaries backward.
He put them to a perpetual reproach.
67 Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph,
and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim,
68 But chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion which he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary like the heights,
like the earth which he has established forever.
70 He also chose David his servant,
and took him from the sheepfolds;
71 from following the ewes that have their young,
he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people,
and Israel, his inheritance.
72 So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart,
and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.
Psalm 79
A Psalm by Asaph.
1 God, the nations have come into your inheritance.
They have defiled your holy temple.
They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.
2 They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky,
the flesh of your holy ones to the animals of the earth.
3 They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem.
There was no one to bury them.
4 We have become a reproach to our neighbors,
a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.
5 How long, LORD?
Will you be angry forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you,
on the kingdoms that don’t call on your name,
7 for they have devoured Jacob,
and destroyed his homeland.
8 Don’t hold the iniquities of our forefathers against us.
Let your tender mercies speedily meet us,
for we are in desperate need.
9 Help us, God of our salvation, for the glory of your name.
Deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake.
10 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Let it be known among the nations, before our eyes,
that vengeance for your servants’ blood is being poured out.
11 Let the sighing of the prisoner come before you.
According to the greatness of your power, preserve those who are sentenced to death.
12 Pay back to our neighbors seven times into their bosom
their reproach with which they have reproached you, Lord.
13 So we, your people and sheep of your pasture,
will give you thanks forever.
We will praise you forever, to all generations.
Psalm 80
For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “The Lilies of the Covenant.” A Psalm by Asaph.
1 Hear us, Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock,
you who sit above the cherubim, shine out.
2 Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up your might!
Come to save us!
3 Turn us again, God.
Cause your face to shine,
and we will be saved.
4 LORD God of Hosts,
how long will you be angry against the prayer of your people?
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears,
and given them tears to drink in large measure.
6 You make us a source of contention to our neighbors.
Our enemies laugh among themselves.
7 Turn us again, God of Hosts.
Cause your face to shine,
and we will be saved.
8 You brought a vine out of Egypt.
You drove out the nations, and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground for it.
It took deep root, and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shadow.
Its boughs were like God’s cedars.
11 It sent out its branches to the sea,
its shoots to the River.
12 Why have you broken down its walls,
so that all those who pass by the way pluck it?
13 The boar out of the wood ravages it.
The wild animals of the field feed on it.
14 Turn again, we beg you, God of Hosts.
Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine,
15 the stock which your right hand planted,
the branch that you made strong for yourself.
16 It’s burned with fire.
It’s cut down.
They perish at your rebuke.
17 Let your hand be on the man of your right hand,
on the son of man whom you made strong for yourself.
18 So we will not turn away from you.
Revive us, and we will call on your name.
19 Turn us again, LORD God of Hosts.
Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.
Psalm 81
For the Chief Musician. On an instrument of Gath. By Asaph.
1 Sing aloud to God, our strength!
Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob!
2 Raise a song, and bring here the tambourine,
the pleasant lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the shofar at the New Moon,
at the full moon, on our feast day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant,
when he went out over the land of Egypt,
I heard a language that I didn’t know.
6 “I removed his shoulder from the burden.
His hands were freed from the basket.
7 You called in trouble, and I delivered you.
I answered you in the secret place of thunder.
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.”
Selah.
8 “Hear, my people, and I will testify to you,
Israel, if you would listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god in you,
neither shall you worship any foreign god.
10 I am the LORD, your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 But my people didn’t listen to my voice.
Israel desired none of me.
12 So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts,
that they might walk in their own counsels.
13 Oh that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I would soon subdue their enemies,
and turn my hand against their adversaries.
15 The haters of the LORD would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last forever.
16 But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat.
I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”
Psalm 82
A Psalm by Asaph.
1 God presides in the great assembly.
He judges among the gods.
2 “How long will you judge unjustly,
and show partiality to the wicked?”
Selah.
3 “Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless.
Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and needy.
Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”
5 They don’t know, neither do they understand.
They walk back and forth in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6 I said, “You are gods,
all of you are sons of the Most High.
7 Nevertheless you shall die like men,
and fall like one of the rulers.”
8 Arise, God, judge the earth,
for you inherit all of the nations.
Psalm 83
A song. A Psalm by Asaph.
1 God, don’t keep silent.
Don’t keep silent,
and don’t be still, God.
2 For, behold, your enemies are stirred up.
Those who hate you have lifted up their heads.
3 They conspire with cunning against your people.
They plot against your cherished ones.
4 “Come,” they say, “let’s destroy them as a nation,
that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”
5 For they have conspired together with one mind.
They form an alliance against you.
6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites;
Moab, and the Hagrites;
7 Gebal,
