A Request to Act against Israel’s Neighbors

83 A song. A psalm of Asaph.a

1 O God, do not rest silently.

Do not keep silent or be still, O God.

2 For look, your enemies roar,

and those who hate you have lifted their head.

3 They devise cunning schemesb against your people,

and consult together against your protected ones.c

4 They say, “Come, let us annihilate them from being a nation,

so that the name of Israel will be remembered no more.”

5 For they have consulted together ⌊with a unified purpose⌋.d

They have made a covenant against you:

6 the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,

Moab and the Hagrites,

7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,

Philistia, with the inhabitants of Tyre.

8 Assyria also has joined with them.

They ⌊provide help⌋e to the children of Lot. Selah

9 Do to them as you did with Midian,

as with Sisera, as with Jabin at the wadi of Kishon.

10 They were destroyed at En-dor;

they became dung for the ground.

11 Make their leaders like Oreb and Zeeb,

and all their chiefs like Zebah and Zalmunna,

12 who said, “Let us take as our possession

the pastures of God.”

13 O my God, make them like the tumbleweed,

like the chaff before wind.

14 As fire burns a forest,

and as a flame sets afire mountains,

15 so pursue them with your tempest

and terrify them with your storm.

16 Fill their faces with shame,

that they may seek your name, O Yahweh.

17 Let them be ashamed and terrified forever,

and let them be humiliated and perish

18 that they may know that you,

whose name is Yahweh, you alone,

are the Most High over the whole earth.