Psalm 81–83

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.