For there our captors demanded a song from us; and our plunderers demanded gladness, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

A sacrifice and offering you do not desire. {My ears you have opened}. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not demanded.

Why has the wicked person despised God?
He says to himself, “You will not demand an account.”

The Lord always proves faithful and reliable to those who follow the demands of his covenant.

The Lord's loyal followers receive his guidance, and he reveals his covenantal demands to them.

They deliberately tested God,
demanding the food they craved.

You demand that your precepts be carefully kept.

There rise up witnesses helping forward violence and wrong, What I know not, they demand of me:

Those who seek my life lay snares for me,
And those who seek to injure me threaten mischievous things and destruction;
They devise treachery all the day long.

For strangers have risen against me
And violent men have sought my life;
They have not set God before them. Selah.

But those who seek my life to destroy it
Will [be destroyed and] go into the depths of the earth [into the underworld].

Let those be ashamed and humiliated
Who seek my life;
Let them be turned back and humiliated
Who delight in my hurt.

My tongue also will speak of Your righteousness all day long;
For they are ashamed, for they are humiliated who seek my injury.

O God, arrogant and insolent men have risen up against me;
A band of violent men have sought my life,
And they have not set You before them.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep;
Seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments.