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An instruction: of Asaph.

¹ Why, O God, hast thou cast off for ever? [why] doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?

² Remember thine assembly, which thou hast purchased of old, which thou hast redeemed [to be] the portion of thine inheritance, this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.

³ Lift up thy steps unto the perpetual desolations: everything in the sanctuary hath the enemy destroyed.

⁴ Thine adversaries roar in the midst of thy place of assembly; they set up their signs [for] signs.

⁵ [A man] was known as he could lift up axes in the thicket of trees;

⁶ And now they break down its carved work altogether, with hatchets and hammers.

⁷ They have set on fire thy sanctuary, they have profaned the habitation of thy name to the ground.

⁸ They said in their heart, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all God's places of assembly in the land.

⁹ We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.

¹⁰ How long, O God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy contemn thy name for ever?

¹¹ Why withdrawest thou thy hand, and thy right hand? [pluck it] out of thy bosom: consume [them].

¹² But God is my king of old, accomplishing deliverances in the midst of the earth.

¹³ *Thou* didst divide the sea by thy strength; thou didst break the heads of the monsters on the waters:

¹⁴ *Thou* didst break in pieces the heads of leviathan, thou gavest him to be meat to those that people the desert.

¹⁵ *Thou* didst cleave fountain and torrent, *thou* driedst up ever-flowing rivers.

¹⁶ The day is thine, the night also is thine; *thou* hast prepared the moon and the sun:

¹⁷ *Thou* hast set all the borders of the earth; summer and winter—*thou* didst form them.

¹⁸ Remember this, that an enemy hath reproached Jehovah, and a foolish people have contemned thy name.

¹⁹ Give not up the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the wild beast; forget not the troop of thine afflicted for ever.

²⁰ Have respect unto the covenant; for the dark places of the earth are full of the dwellings of violence.

²¹ Oh let not the oppressed one return ashamed; let the afflicted and needy praise thy name.

²² Rise up, O God, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee all the day;

²³ Forget not the voice of thine adversaries: the tumult of those that rise up against thee ascendeth continually.