Psalm 80–84

Psalm 80

For the choir director: A psalm of Asaph, to be sung to the tune “Lilies of the Covenant.”

¹Please listen, O Shepherd of Israel,

you who lead Joseph’s descendants like a flock.

O God, enthroned above the cherubim,

display your radiant glory

²to Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh.

Show us your mighty power.

Come to rescue us!

³Turn us again to yourself, O God.

Make your face shine down upon us.

Only then will we be saved.

⁴O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies,

how long will you be angry with our prayers?

⁵You have fed us with sorrow

and made us drink tears by the bucketful.

⁶You have made us the scorn of neighboring nations.

Our enemies treat us as a joke.

⁷Turn us again to yourself, O God of Heaven’s Armies.

Make your face shine down upon us.

Only then will we be saved.

⁸You brought us from Egypt like a grapevine;

you drove away the pagan nations and transplanted us into your land.

⁹You cleared the ground for us,

and we took root and filled the land.

¹⁰Our shade covered the mountains;

our branches covered the mighty cedars.

¹¹We spread our branches west to the Mediterranean Sea;

our shoots spread east to the Euphrates River.

¹²But now, why have you broken down our walls

so that all who pass by may steal our fruit?

¹³The wild boar from the forest devours it,

and the wild animals feed on it.

¹⁴Come back, we beg you, O God of Heaven’s Armies.

Look down from heaven and see our plight.

Take care of this grapevine

¹⁵that you yourself have planted,

this son you have raised for yourself.

¹⁶For we are chopped up and burned by our enemies.

May they perish at the sight of your frown.

¹⁷Strengthen the man you love,

the son of your choice.

¹⁸Then we will never abandon you again.

Revive us so we can call on your name once more.

¹⁹Turn us again to yourself, O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies.

Make your face shine down upon us.

Only then will we be saved.

Psalm 81

For the choir director: A psalm of Asaph, to be accompanied by a stringed instrument.

¹Sing praises to God, our strength.

Sing to the God of Jacob.

²Sing! Beat the tambourine.

Play the sweet lyre and the harp.

³Blow the ram’s horn at new moon,

and again at full moon to call a festival!

⁴For this is required by the decrees of Israel;

it is a regulation of the God of Jacob.

⁵He made it a law for Israel

when he attacked Egypt to set us free.

I heard an unknown voice say,

⁶“Now I will take the load from your shoulders;

I will free your hands from their heavy tasks.

⁷You cried to me in trouble, and I saved you;

I answered out of the thundercloud

and tested your faith when there was no water at Meribah.

Interlude

⁸“Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings.

O Israel, if you would only listen to me!

⁹You must never have a foreign god;

you must not bow down before a false god.

¹⁰For it was I, the Lord your God,

who rescued you from the land of Egypt.

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things.

¹¹“But no, my people wouldn’t listen.

Israel did not want me around.

¹²So I let them follow their own stubborn desires,

living according to their own ideas.

¹³Oh, that my people would listen to me!

Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my paths!

¹⁴How quickly I would then subdue their enemies!

How soon my hands would be upon their foes!

¹⁵Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him;

they would be doomed forever.

¹⁶But I would feed you with the finest wheat.

I would satisfy you with wild honey from the rock.”

Psalm 82

A psalm of Asaph.

¹God presides over heaven’s court;

he pronounces judgment on the heavenly beings:

²“How long will you hand down unjust decisions

by favoring the wicked?

Interlude

³“Give justice to the poor and the orphan;

uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute.

⁴Rescue the poor and helpless;

deliver them from the grasp of evil people.

⁵But these oppressors know nothing;

they are so ignorant!

They wander about in darkness,

while the whole world is shaken to the core.

⁶I say, ‘You are gods;

you are all children of the Most High.

⁷But you will die like mere mortals

and fall like every other ruler.’ ”

⁸Rise up, O God, and judge the earth,

for all the nations belong to you.

Psalm 83

A song. A psalm of Asaph.

¹O God, do not be silent!

Do not be deaf.

Do not be quiet, O God.

²Don’t you hear the uproar of your enemies?

Don’t you see that your arrogant enemies are rising up?

³They devise crafty schemes against your people;

they conspire against your precious ones.

⁴“Come,” they say, “let us wipe out Israel as a nation.

We will destroy the very memory of its existence.”

⁵Yes, this was their unanimous decision.

They signed a treaty as allies against you—

⁶these Edomites and Ishmaelites;

Moabites and Hagrites;

⁷Gebalites, Ammonites, and Amalekites;

and people from Philistia and Tyre.

⁸Assyria has joined them, too,

and is allied with the descendants of Lot.

Interlude

⁹Do to them as you did to the Midianites

and as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River.

¹⁰They were destroyed at Endor,

and their decaying corpses fertilized the soil.

¹¹Let their mighty nobles die as Oreb and Zeeb did.

Let all their princes die like Zebah and Zalmunna,

¹²for they said, “Let us seize for our own use

these pasturelands of God!”

¹³O my God, scatter them like tumbleweed,

like chaff before the wind!

¹⁴As a fire burns a forest

and as a flame sets mountains ablaze,

¹⁵chase them with your fierce storm;

terrify them with your tempest.

¹⁶Utterly disgrace them

until they submit to your name, O Lord.

¹⁷Let them be ashamed and terrified forever.

Let them die in disgrace.

¹⁸Then they will learn that you alone are called the Lord,

that you alone are the Most High,

supreme over all the earth.

Psalm 84

For the choir director: A psalm of the descendants of Korah, to be accompanied by a stringed instrument.

¹How lovely is your dwelling place,

O Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

²I long, yes, I faint with longing

to enter the courts of the Lord.

With my whole being, body and soul,

I will shout joyfully to the living God.

³Even the sparrow finds a home,

and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young

at a place near your altar,

O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, my King and my God!

⁴What joy for those who can live in your house,

always singing your praises.

Interlude

⁵What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord,

who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

⁶When they walk through the Valley of Weeping,

it will become a place of refreshing springs.

The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings.

⁷They will continue to grow stronger,

and each of them will appear before God in Jerusalem.

⁸O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, hear my prayer.

Listen, O God of Jacob.

Interlude

⁹O God, look with favor upon the king, our shield!

Show favor to the one you have anointed.

¹⁰A single day in your courts

is better than a thousand anywhere else!

I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God

than live the good life in the homes of the wicked.

¹¹For the Lord God is our sun and our shield.

He gives us grace and glory.

The Lord will withhold no good thing

from those who do what is right.

¹²O Lord of Heaven’s Armies,

what joy for those who trust in you.