Psalm 44

Present Defeat and Past Deliverance

44For the music director. Of the sons of Korah. A maskil.^a

¹O God, we have heard with our ears;

our ancestors^b have told us

of work you worked in their days,

in days of old.

²You with your hand drove out the nations,

but them^c you planted.

You harmed the peoples,

but them^d you let spread out.

³For not with their sword

did they possess the land,

and their arm did not give them victory.

Rather it was your right hand and your arm

and the light of your presence,

because you delighted in them.

⁴You are my king, O God.

Command^e victories for Jacob.

⁵By you we push down our enemies;

by your name we tread down those who rise up against us.

⁶For I do not trust my bow,

and my sword cannot give me victory.

⁷Rather you have saved us from our enemies,^f

and have humiliated those who hate us.

⁸In God we boast all the day,

and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah

⁹Surely you have rejected and disgraced us,

and have not gone out with our armies.

¹⁰You have caused us to pull back from the enemy,

and so those who hate us have plundered for themselves.

¹¹You have given us as sheep for food,

and among the nations you have scattered us.

¹²You have sold your people cheaply,^g

and did not profit by their price.

¹³You have made us a taunt to our neighbors,

a derision and a scorn to those around us.

¹⁴You have made us a byword among the nations,

a shaking of the head among the peoples.

¹⁵All day long^h my disgrace is before me,

and the shame of my face covers me,

¹⁶because of the voice of the taunter and the reviler,

because of the enemy and the avenger.

¹⁷All this has befallen us, though we have not forgotten you,

and we have not been false to your covenant.

¹⁸Our heart has not turned back,

and our steps have not turned aside from your way.

¹⁹But you have crushed us in a place of jackals,

and have covered us with deep shadow.

²⁰If we had forgotten the name of our God,

or had spread out our hands in prayer to a foreign god,

²¹would not God discover this,

for he knows the secrets of the heart?

²²Rather, on account of you we are killed all day long;ⁱ

we are accounted as sheep for slaughter.

²³Wake up! Why do you sleep, O Lord?

Awake! Do not reject forever.

²⁴Why do you hide your face?

Have you forgotten our misery and our oppression?

²⁵For our soul is bowed down to the dust.

Our body^j clings to the ground.

²⁶Rise up! Be a help for us,

and redeem us for the sake of your loyal love.