Zion heard this and was glad,
And the daughters (cities) of Judah rejoiced [in relief]
Because of Your judgments, O Lord.

Light is sown [like seed] for the righteous and illuminates their path,
And [irrepressible] joy [is spread] for the upright in heart [who delight in His favor and protection].

Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous ones [those whose moral and spiritual integrity places them in right standing with God],
And praise and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

The Lord has made known His salvation;
He has [openly] revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations.

Let the sea thunder and roar, and all the things it contains,
The world and those who dwell in it.

The Lord is great in Zion,
And He is exalted and magnified above all the peoples.

The strength of the King loves justice and righteous judgment;
You have established fairness;
You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob (Israel).

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

I will behave wisely and follow the way of integrity.
When will You come to me?
I will walk in my house in integrity and with a blameless heart.

He who practices deceit will not dwell in my house;
He who tells lies and half-truths will not continue [to remain] in my presence.

Morning after morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land,
That I may cut off from the city of the Lord all those who do evil.

Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress!
Incline Your ear to me;
In the day when I call, answer me quickly.

My heart has been struck like grass and withered,
Indeed, [absorbed by my heartache] I forget to eat my food.

I am sleepless and lie awake [mourning],
I have become like a lonely bird on a housetop.

For I have eaten ashes like bread,
And have mingled my drink with tears

My days are like an evening shadow that lengthens and vanishes [with the sun];
And as for me, I wither away like grass.

For Your servants find [melancholy] pleasure in the stones [of her ruins]
And feel pity for her dust.

For the Lord has built up Zion;
He has appeared in His glory and brilliance;

So that people may declare the name of the Lord in Zion
And His praise in Jerusalem,

When the peoples are gathered together,
And the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.

He has exhausted my strength [humbling me with sorrow] in the way;
He has shortened my days.

I said, “O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days;
Your years are [eternal] throughout all generations.

Bless and affectionately praise the Lord, O my soul,
And do not forget any of His benefits;

Who forgives all your sins,
Who heals all your diseases;

The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in compassion and lovingkindness.

For He knows our [mortal] frame;
He remembers that we are [merely] dust.

To those who honor and keep His covenant,
And remember to do His commandments [imprinting His word on their hearts].

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens,
And His sovereignty rules over all [the universe].

Bless the Lord, all you works of His, in all places of His dominion;
Bless and affectionately praise the Lord, O my soul!

[You are the One] who covers Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretches out the heavens like a tent curtain,

Who lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters [above the firmament],
Who makes the clouds His chariot,
Who walks on the wings of the wind,

And wine which makes the heart of man glad,
So that he may make his face glisten with oil,
And bread to sustain and strengthen man’s heart.

You [O Lord] make darkness and it becomes night,
In which prowls about every wild beast of the forest.

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

O Lord, how many and varied are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all;
The earth is full of Your riches and Your creatures.

There is the sea, great and broad,
In which are swarms without number,
Creatures both small and great.

There the ships [of the sea] sail,
And Leviathan [the sea monster], which You have formed to play there.

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

You give it to them, they gather it up;
You open Your hand, they are filled and satisfied with good [things].

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

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

May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
May the Lord rejoice and be glad in His works—

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

May my meditation be sweet and pleasing to Him;
As for me, I will rejoice and be glad in the Lord.

Sing to Him, sing praises to Him;
Speak of all His wonderful acts and devoutly praise them.

Glory in His holy name;
Let the hearts of those who seek and require the Lord [as their most essential need] rejoice.

Remember [with awe and gratitude] the wonderful things which He has done,
His amazing deeds and the judgments uttered by His mouth [on His enemies, as in Egypt],

He is the Lord our God;
His judgments are in all the earth.

He has remembered His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded and established to a thousand generations,

Which He confirmed to Jacob as a statute,
To Israel as an everlasting covenant,

When there were only a few men in number,
Very few [in fact], and strangers in it;

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

He allowed no man to oppress them;
He rebuked kings for their sakes, saying,

His feet they hurt with shackles;
He was put in chains of iron,

Israel also came into Egypt;
Thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

They exhibited His wondrous signs among them,
Great miracles in the land of Ham (Egypt).

Their land swarmed with frogs,
Even in the chambers of their kings.

He spoke, and there came swarms of flies
And gnats in all their territory.

He gave them hail for rain,
With flaming fire in their land.

And ate up all the vegetation in their land,
And devoured the fruit of their ground.

He also struck down all the firstborn in their land,
The first fruits and chief substance of all their strength.

He brought the sons of Israel out [of Egypt] with silver and gold,
And among their tribes there was not one who stumbled.

Egypt was glad when they departed,
For the dread and fear of them had fallen on the Egyptians.

The Lord spread a cloud as a covering [by day],
And a fire to illumine the night.

He opened the rock and water flowed out;
It ran in the dry places like a river.

Blessed are those who observe justice [by honoring God’s precepts],
Who practice righteousness at all times.

Remember me, O Lord, when You favor Your people.
Visit me with Your salvation [when You rescue them],

That I may see the prosperity of Your chosen ones,
That I may rejoice in the gladness of Your nation,
That I may glory with Your inheritance.

Our fathers in Egypt did not understand nor appreciate Your miracles;
They did not remember the abundance of Your mercies nor imprint Your lovingkindnesses on their hearts,
But they were rebellious at the sea, at the Red Sea.

And the waters covered their adversaries;
Not one of them was left.

Then Israel believed in [the validity of] His words;
They sang His praise.

But lusted intensely in the wilderness
And tempted God [with their insistent desires] in the desert.

They envied Moses in the camp,
And Aaron [the high priest], the holy one of the Lord,

And a fire broke out in their company;
The flame consumed the wicked.

They made a calf in Horeb (Sinai)
And worshiped a cast image.

Thus they exchanged [the true God who was] their glory
For the image of an ox that eats grass.

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

Wonders in the land of Ham,
Awesome things at the Red Sea.

Therefore He said He would destroy them,
[And He would have done so] had not Moses, His chosen one, stepped into the gap before Him,
To turn away His wrath from destroying them.

Then they despised the pleasant land [of Canaan];
They did not believe in His word nor rely on it,

But they sulked and complained in their tents;
They did not listen to the voice of the Lord.

Therefore He lifted up His hand [swearing] to them,
That He would cause them to fall in the wilderness,

And that He would cast out their descendants among the nations
And scatter them in the lands [of the earth].

In this way they became unclean in their practices;
They played the prostitute in their own deeds [by giving their worship, which belongs to God alone, to other “gods”].

Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against His people
And He detested His own inheritance.

Many times He rescued them;
But they were rebellious in their counsel,
And sank down in their wickedness.

Nevertheless He looked [sympathetically] at their distress
When He heard their cry;

And He remembered His covenant for their sake,
And relented [rescinding their sentence] according to the greatness of His lovingkindness [when they cried out to Him],

Save us, O Lord our God,
And gather us from among the nations,
That we may give thanks to Your holy name
And glory in praising You.

And gathered them from the lands,
From the east and from the west,
From the north and from the south.

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

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

Some dwelt in darkness and in the deep (deathly) darkness,
Prisoners [bound] in misery and chains,

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

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

Those who go down to the sea in ships,
Who do business on great waters;

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

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

Let them exalt Him also in the congregation of the people,
And praise Him at the seat of the elders.

A productive land into a [barren] salt waste,
Because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it.