Psalm 60

A David Psalm, When He Fought Against Aram-naharaim and Aram-zobah and Joab Killed Twelve Thousand Edomites at the Valley of Salt

^1–260God! you walked off and left us,

kicked our defenses to bits

And stalked off angry.

Come back. Oh please, come back!

You shook earth to the foundations,

ripped open huge crevasses.

Heal the breaks! Everything’s

coming apart at the seams.

^3–5You made your people look doom in the face,

then gave us cheap wine to drown our troubles.

Then you planted a flag to rally your people,

an unfurled flag to look to for courage.

Now do something quickly, answer right now,

so the one you love best is saved.

^6–8That’s when God spoke in holy splendor,

“Bursting with joy,

I make a present of Shechem,

I hand out Succoth Valley as a gift.

Gilead’s in my pocket,

to say nothing of Manasseh.

Ephraim’s my hard hat,

Judah my hammer;

Moab’s a scrub bucket,

I mop the floor with Moab,

Spit on Edom,

rain fireworks all over Philistia.”

^9–10Who will take me to the thick of the fight?

Who’ll show me the road to Edom?

You aren’t giving up on us, are you, God?

refusing to go out with our troops?

^11–12Give us help for the hard task;

human help is worthless.

In God we’ll do our very best;

he’ll flatten the opposition for good.