✧A contemplation by Asaph. God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture? ✧2Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance: Mount Zion, in which you have lived. ✧3Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins, all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary. ✧4Your adversaries have roared in the middle of your assembly. They have set up their standards as signs. ✧5They behaved like men wielding axes, cutting through a thicket of trees. ✧6Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers. ✧7They have burned your sanctuary to the ground. They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name. ✧8They said in their heart, “We will crush them completely.” They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped. ✧9We see no miraculous signs. There is no longer any prophet, neither is there among us anyone who knows how long. ✧10How long, God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme your name forever? ✧11Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? Take it from your chest and consume them! ✧12Yet God is my King of old, working salvation throughout the earth. ✧13You divided the sea by your strength. You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters. ✧14You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces. You gave him as food to people and desert creatures. ✧15You opened up spring and stream. You dried up mighty rivers. ✧16The day is yours, the night is also yours. You have prepared the light and the sun. ✧17You have set all the boundaries of the earth. You have made summer and winter. ✧18Remember this, that the enemy has mocked you, LORD. Foolish people have blasphemed your name. ✧19Don’t deliver the soul of your dove to wild beasts. Don’t forget the life of your poor forever. ✧20Honor your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth. ✧21Don’t let the oppressed return ashamed. Let the poor and needy praise your name. ✧22Arise, God! Plead your own cause. Remember how the foolish man mocks you all day. ✧23Don’t forget the voice of your adversaries. The tumult of those who rise up against you ascends continually.