Psalm 72–82

Psalm 72

¹A psalm for Asaph.

How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!

²But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.

³Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.

⁴For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes.

⁵They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men.

⁶Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.

⁷Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.

⁸They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.

⁹They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.

¹⁰Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them.

¹¹And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?

¹²Behold these are sinners; and yet, abounding in the world they have obtained riches.

¹³And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.

¹⁴And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.

¹⁵If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children.

¹⁶I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:

¹⁷Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.

¹⁸But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.

¹⁹How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.

²⁰As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.

²¹For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed:

²²And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.

²³I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.

²⁴Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.

²⁵For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?

²⁶For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.

²⁷For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee.

²⁸But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: That I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion.

Psalm 73

¹Understanding for Asaph.

O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end: why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture?

²Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning. The sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed: mount Sion in which thou hast dwelt.

³Lift up thy hands against their pride unto the end; see what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.

⁴And they that hate thee have made their boasts, in the midst of thy solemnity. They have set up their ensigns for signs,

⁵And they knew not both in the going out and on the highest top. As with axes in a wood of trees,

⁶They have cut down at once the gates thereof, with axe and hatchet they have brought it down.

⁷They have set fire to thy sanctuary: they have defiled the dwelling place of thy name on the earth.

⁸They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land.

⁹Our signs we have not seen, there is now no prophet: and he will know us no more.

¹⁰How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach: is the adversary to provoke thy name for ever?

¹¹Why dost thou turn away thy hand: and thy right hand out of the midst of thy bosom for ever?

¹²But God is our king before ages: he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.

¹³Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters.

¹⁴Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon: thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians.

¹⁵Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers.

¹⁶Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun.

¹⁷Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summer and the spring were formed by thee.

¹⁸Remember this, the enemy hath reproached the Lord: and a foolish people hath provoked thy name.

¹⁹Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee: and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor.

²⁰Have regard to thy covenant: for they that are the obscure of the earth have been filled with dwellings of iniquity.

²¹Let not the humble be turned away with confusion: the poor and needy shall praise thy name.

²²Arise, O God, judge thy own cause: remember thy reproaches with which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day.

²³Forget not the voices of thy enemies: the pride of them that hate thee ascendeth continually.

Psalm 74

¹Unto the end, corrupt not, a psalm of a canticle for Asaph.

²We will praise thee, O God: we will praise, and we will call upon thy name. We will relate thy wondrous works:

³When I shall take a time, I will judge justices.

⁴The earth is melted, and all that dwell therein: I have established the pillars thereof.

⁵I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly: and to the sinners: Lift not up the horn.

⁶Lift not up your horn on high: speak not iniquity against God.

⁷For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert hills:

⁸For God is the judge. One he putteth down, and another he lifteth up:

⁹For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup of strong wine full of mixture. And he hath poured it out from this to that: but the dregs thereof are not emptied: all the sinners of the earth shall drink.

¹⁰But I will declare for ever: I will sing to the God of Jacob.

¹¹And I will break all the horns of sinners: but the horns of the just shall be exalted.

Psalm 75

¹Unto the end, in praises, a psalm for Asaph: a canticle to the Assyrians.

²In Judea God is known: his name is great in Israel.

³And his place is in peace: and his abode in Sion:

⁴There hath he broken the powers of bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle.

⁵Thou enlightenest wonderfully from the everlasting hills.

⁶All the foolish of heart were troubled. They have slept their sleep; and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands.

⁷At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, they have all slumbered that mounted on horseback.

⁸Thou art terrible, and who shall resist thee? from that time thy wrath.

⁹Thou hast caused judgment to be heard from heaven: the earth trembled and was still,

¹⁰When God arose in judgment, to save all the meek of the earth.

¹¹For the thought of man shall give praise to thee: and the remainders of the thought shall keep holiday to thee.

¹²Vow ye, and pay to the Lord your God: all you that are round about him bring presents. To him that is terrible,

¹³Even to him who taketh away the spirit of princes: to the terrible with the kings of the earth.

Psalm 76

¹Unto the end, for Idithun, a psalm of Asaph.

²I cried to the Lord with my voice; to God with my voice, and he gave ear to me.

³In the days of my trouble I sought God, with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived. My soul refused to be comforted:

⁴I remembered God, and was delighted, and was exercised, and my spirit swooned away.

⁵My eyes prevented the watches: I was troubled, and I spoke not.

⁶I thought upon the days of old: and I had in my mind the eternal years.

⁷And I meditated in the night with my own heart: and I was exercised and I swept my spirit.

⁸Will God then cast off for ever? or will he never be more favourable again?

⁹Or will he cut off his mercy for ever, from generation to generation?

¹⁰Or will God forget to shew mercy? or will he in his anger shut up his mercies?

¹¹And I said, Now have I begun: this is the change of the right hand of the most High.

¹²I remembered the works of the Lord: for I will be mindful of thy wonders from the beginning.

¹³And I will meditate on all thy works: and will be employed in thy inventions.

¹⁴Thy way, O God, is in the holy place: who is the great God like our God?

¹⁵Thou art the God that dost wonders. Thou hast made thy power known among the nations:

¹⁶With thy arm thou hast redeemed thy people the children of Jacob and of Joseph.

¹⁷The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee: and they were afraid, and the depths were troubled.

¹⁸Great was the noise of the waters: the clouds sent out a sound. For thy arrows pass:

¹⁹The voice of thy thunder in a wheel. Thy lightnings enlightened the world: the earth shook and trembled.

²⁰Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths in many waters: and thy footsteps shall not be known.

²¹Thou hast conducted thy people like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Psalm 77

¹Understanding for Asaph.

Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning.

³How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

⁴They have not been hidden from their children, in another generation. Declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders which he hath done.

⁵And he set up a testimony in Jacob: and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children:

⁶That another generation might know them. The children that should be born and should rise up, and declare them to their children.

⁷That they may put their hope in God and may not forget the works of God: and may seek his commandments.

⁸That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart aright: and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

⁹The sons of Ephraim who bend and shoot with the bow: they have turned back in…