PSALM 74
1An Asaph maskil.
Why, O God, have You abandoned us forever?
Your wrath smolders against the flock You should tend.
2Remember Your cohort You took up of old,
You redeemed the tribe of Your estate,
Mount Zion where You dwelled.
3Lift up Your feet to the eternal ruins,
all that the enemy laid waste in the sanctuary.
4Your foes roared out in Your meeting place,
they set up their signs as signs.
5They hacked away as one brings down from above
in a tangle of trees with axes.
6And its carvings altogether
with hatchet and pike they pounded.
7They set fire to Your sanctuary,
they profaned on the ground Your name’s dwelling place.
8They said in their heart, “We shall destroy them altogether.”
They burned all God’s meeting places in the land.
9Our own signs we did not see.
There is no longer a prophet,
nor any among us who knows until when.
10Until when, O God, will the foe insult,
the enemy revile Your name forever?
11Why do You draw back Your hand,
and Your right hand hold in Your bosom?
12Yet God is my king of old,
worker of rescues in the midst of the earth.
13You shattered the sea god with Your strength,
You smashed the monsters’ heads on the waters.
14You crushed the Leviathan’s heads,
You gave him as food to the desert-folk.
15You split open a channel for spring and brook,
You dried up the surging torrents.
16Yours is the day, also Yours the night.
It was You Who founded the light and the sun.
17It was You Who laid down all the boundaries of earth,
summer and winter, You fashioned them.
18Remember this: the enemy insulted,
a base people reviled Your name.
19Do not yield to the beast the life of Your dove,
the band of Your lowly forget not forever.
20Look to the pact,
for the dark places of earth fill with groans of outrage.
21Let not the poor man turn back disgraced.
Let the lowly and needy praise Your name.
22Arise, God, O plead Your cause.
Remember the insult to You by the base all day long.
23Forget not the voice of Your foes,