You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

26 In that day ethis song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;

he sets up fsalvation

as walls and bulwarks.

2  gOpen the gates,

that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

3  hYou keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

4  Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

5  iFor he has humbled

the inhabitants of the height,

the lofty city.

He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,

casts it to the dust.

6  The foot tramples it,

the feet of jthe poor,

the steps of jthe needy.”

7  The path of the righteous is level;

kyou make level the way of the righteous.

8  In the path of your judgments,

O Lord, we wait for you;

lyour name and lremembrance

are the desire of our soul.

9  My soul yearns for you in the night;

my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

mFor when your judgments are in the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

10  nIf favor is shown to the wicked,

he does not learn righteousness;

in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly

and does not see the majesty of the Lord.

11  O Lord, oyour hand is lifted up,

but pthey do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

Let qthe fire for your adversaries consume them.

12  O Lord, you will ordain rpeace for us,

for you have indeed done for us all our works.

13  O Lord our God,

sother lords besides you have ruled over us,

tbut your name alone we bring to remembrance.

14  They are dead, they will not live;

they are shades, they will not arise;

to that end you have visited them with destruction

and wiped out all remembrance of them.

15  uBut you have increased the nation, O Lord,

you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

vyou have enlarged all the borders of the land.

16  O Lord, win distress they sought you;

they poured out a whispered prayer

when your discipline was upon them.

17  xLike a pregnant woman

who writhes and cries out in her pangs

when she is near to giving birth,

so were we because of you, O Lord;

18  xwe were pregnant, we writhed,

but we have given birth to wind.

We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,

and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

19  yYour dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For zyour dew is a dew of light,

and the earth will give birth to the dead.

20  Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves afor a little while

until the fury has passed by.

21  bFor behold, the Lord is coming out from his place

to punish the inhabitants of cthe earth for their iniquity,

and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

and will no more cover its slain.