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¹ On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city;
    he sets up victory
    like walls and bulwarks.
² Open the gates,
    so that the righteous nation that keeps faith
    may enter in.
³ Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace—
    in peace because they trust in you.
⁴ Trust in the Lord forever,
    for in the Lord God^[a]
    you have an everlasting rock.
⁵ For he has brought low
    the inhabitants of the height;
    the lofty city he lays low.
He lays it low to the ground,
    casts it to the dust.
⁶ The foot tramples it,
    the feet of the poor,
    the steps of the needy.

⁷ The way of the righteous is level;
    O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous.
⁸ In the path of your judgments,
    O Lord, we wait for you;
your name and your renown
    are the soul's desire.
⁹ My soul yearns for you in the night,
    my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth,
    the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
¹⁰ If favor is shown to the wicked,
    they do not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness they deal perversely
    and do not see the majesty of the Lord.
¹¹ O Lord, your hand is lifted up,
    but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.
    Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
¹² O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
    for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.
¹³ O Lord our God,
    other lords besides you have ruled over us,
    but we acknowledge your name alone.
¹⁴ The dead do not live;
    shades do not rise—
because you have punished and destroyed them,
    and wiped out all memory of them.
¹⁵ But you have increased the nation, O Lord,
    you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
    you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶ O Lord, in distress they sought you,
    they poured out a prayer^[b]
    when your chastening was on them.
¹⁷ Like a woman with child,
    who writhes and cries out in her pangs
    when she is near her time,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
¹⁸     we were with child, we writhed,
    but we gave birth only to wind.
We have won no victories on earth,
    and no one is born to inhabit the world.
¹⁹ Your dead shall live, their corpses^[c] shall rise.
    O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a radiant dew,
    and the earth will give birth to those long dead.^[d]

²⁰ Come, my people, enter your chambers,
    and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
    until the wrath is past.
²¹ For the Lord comes out from his place
    to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
    and will no longer cover its slain.