But turned back and acted treacherously like their fathers;
They turned aside like a treacherous bow.

For they provoked Him with their high places
And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.

A Psalm of Asaph.
O God, the nations have invaded Your inheritance;
They have defiled Your holy temple;
They have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

They have given the dead bodies of Your servants for food to the birds of the heavens,
The flesh of Your godly ones to the beasts of the earth.

They have poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem;
And there was no one to bury them.

For they have devoured Jacob
And laid waste his habitation.

And return to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom
The reproach with which they have reproached You, O Lord.

It is burned with fire, it is cut down;
They perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.

They do not know nor do they understand;
They walk about in darkness;
All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

They make shrewd plans against Your people,
And conspire together against Your treasured ones.

They have said, “Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation,
That the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

For they have conspired together with one mind;
Against You they make a covenant:

Assyria also has joined with them;
They have become a help to the children of Lot. Selah.

Fill their faces with dishonor,
That they may seek Your name, O Lord.

That they may know that You alone, whose name is the Lord,
Are the Most High over all the earth.

How blessed are those who dwell in Your house!
They are ever praising You. Selah.

Passing through the valley of Baca they make it a spring;
The early rain also covers it with blessings.

They go from strength to strength,
Every one of them appears before God in Zion.

All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And they shall glorify Your name.

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

Forsaken among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You remember no more,
And they are cut off from Your hand.

They have surrounded me like water all day long;
They have encompassed me altogether.

How blessed are the people who know the joyful sound!
O Lord, they walk in the light of Your countenance.

In Your name they rejoice all the day,
And by Your righteousness they are exalted.

If they violate My statutes
And do not keep My commandments,

With which Your enemies have reproached, O Lord,
With which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed.

You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep;
In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.

As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;
For soon it is gone and we fly away.

They will bear you up in their hands,
That you do not strike your foot against a stone.

That when the wicked sprouted up like grass
And all who did iniquity flourished,
It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore.

Planted in the house of the Lord,
They will flourish in the courts of our God.

They will still yield fruit in old age;
They shall be full of sap and very green,

They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly;
All who do wickedness vaunt themselves.

They crush Your people, O Lord,
And afflict Your heritage.

They slay the widow and the stranger
And murder the orphans.

They have said, “The Lord does not see,
Nor does the God of Jacob pay heed.”

The Lord knows the thoughts of man,
That they are a mere breath.

They band themselves together against the life of the righteous
And condemn the innocent to death.

“When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, though they had seen My work.

“For forty years I loathed that generation,
And said they are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not know My ways.

“Therefore I swore in My anger,
Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”

Moses and Aaron were among His priests,
And Samuel was among those who called on His name;
They called upon the Lord and He answered them.

He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud;
They kept His testimonies
And the statute that He gave them.

My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me;
He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me.

“Even they will perish, but You endure;
And all of them will wear out like a garment;
Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed.

At Your rebuke they fled,
At the sound of Your thunder they hurried away.

You set a boundary that they may not pass over,
So that they will not return to cover the earth.

He sends forth springs in the valleys;
They flow between the mountains;

They give drink to every beast of the field;
The wild donkeys quench their thirst.

Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;
They lift up their voices among the branches.

When the sun rises they withdraw
And lie down in their dens.

They all wait for You
To give them their food in due season.

You give to them, they gather it up;
You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good.

You hide Your face, they are dismayed;
You take away their spirit, they expire
And return to their dust.

You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
And You renew the face of the ground.

He looks at the earth, and it trembles;
He touches the mountains, and they smoke.

When they were only a few men in number,
Very few, and strangers in it.

And they wandered about from nation to nation,
From one kingdom to another people.

They afflicted his feet with fetters,
He himself was laid in irons;

They performed His wondrous acts among them,
And miracles in the land of Ham.

He sent darkness and made it dark;
And they did not rebel against His words.

Egypt was glad when they departed,
For the dread of them had fallen upon them.

They asked, and He brought quail,
And satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

He gave them also the lands of the nations,
That they might take possession of the fruit of the peoples’ labor,

So that they might keep His statutes
And observe His laws,
Praise the Lord!

Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders;
They did not remember Your abundant kindnesses,
But rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

Then they believed His words;
They sang His praise.

They quickly forgot His works;
They did not wait for His counsel,

When they became envious of Moses in the camp,
And of Aaron, the holy one of the Lord,

They made a calf in Horeb
And worshiped a molten image.

Thus they exchanged their glory
For the image of an ox that eats grass.

They forgot God their Savior,
Who had done great things in Egypt,

Then they despised the pleasant land;
They did not believe in His word,

But grumbled in their tents;
They did not listen to the voice of the Lord.

They joined themselves also to Baal-peor,
And ate sacrifices offered to the dead.

Thus they provoked Him to anger with their deeds,
And the plague broke out among them.

They also provoked Him to wrath at the waters of Meribah,
So that it went hard with Moses on their account;

Because they were rebellious against His Spirit,
He spoke rashly with his lips.

They did not destroy the peoples,
As the Lord commanded them,

But they mingled with the nations
And learned their practices,

They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons,

And shed innocent blood,
The blood of their sons and their daughters,
Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
And the land was polluted with the blood.

Thus they became unclean in their practices,
And played the harlot in their deeds.

Their enemies also oppressed them,
And they were subdued under their power.

Many times He would deliver them;
They, however, were rebellious in their counsel,
And so sank down in their iniquity.

They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region;
They did not find a way to an inhabited city.

They were hungry and thirsty;
Their soul fainted within them.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble;
He delivered them out of their distresses.

Because they had rebelled against the words of God
And spurned the counsel of the Most High.

Therefore He humbled their heart with labor;
They stumbled and there was none to help.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble;
He saved them out of their distresses.

Their soul abhorred all kinds of food,
And they drew near to the gates of death.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble;
He saved them out of their distresses.

They have seen the works of the Lord,
And His wonders in the deep.

They rose up to the heavens, they went down to the depths;
Their soul melted away in their misery.

They reeled and staggered like a drunken man,
And were at their wits’ end.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
And He brought them out of their distresses.

Then they were glad because they were quiet,
So He guided them to their desired haven.

And there He makes the hungry to dwell,
So that they may establish an inhabited city,

Also He blesses them and they multiply greatly,
And He does not let their cattle decrease.