Psalm 83–84

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.