< Psalms 44 >
1 For the end, a Psalm for instruction, for the sons of Core. O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, the work which you wrought in their days, in the days of old.
2 Your hand utterly destroyed the heathen, and you did plant them: you did afflict the nations, and cast them out.
3 For they inherited not the land by their [own] sword, and their [own] arm did not deliver them; but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your countenance, because you were well pleased in them.
4 You are indeed my King and my God, who command deliverances for Jacob.
5 In you will we push down our enemies, and in your name will we bring to nothing them that rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow, and my sword shall not save me.
7 For you have saved us from them that afflicted us, and have put to shame them that hated us.
8 In God will we make our boast all the day, and to your name will we give thanks for ever. (Pause)
9 But now you have cast off, and put us to shame; and you will not go forth with our hosts.
10 You have turned us back before our enemies; and they that hated us spoiled for themselves.
11 You made us as sheep for meat; and you scattered us among the nations.
12 You have sold your people without price, and there was no profit by their exchange.
13 You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision them that are round about us.
14 You have made us a proverb among the Gentiles, a shaking of the head among the nations.
15 All the day my shame is before me, and the confusion of my face has covered me,
16 because of the voice of the slanderer and reviler; because of the enemy and avenger.
17 All these things are come upon us: but we have not forgotten you, neither have we dealt unrighteously in your covenant.
18 And our heart has not gone back; but you have turned aside our paths from your way.
19 For you have laid us low in a place of affliction, and the shadow of death has covered us.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, and if we have spread out our hands to a strange god; shall not God search these things out?
21 for he knows the secrets of the heart.
22 For, for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for slaughter.
23 Awake, therefore sleep you, O Lord? arise, and do not cast [us] off for ever.
24 Therefore turn you your face away, [and] forget our poverty and our affliction?
25 For our soul has been brought down to the dust; our belly has cleaved to the earth.
26 Arise, O Lord, help us, and redeem us for your name's sake.