⁴Your foes have roared in the midst of your holy place;
they set up their own signs for signs.
⁵At the upper entrance
they hacked the wooden trellis with axes.
⁶And then all its carved wood
they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
⁷They set your sanctuary on fire;
to the ground they desecrated the dwelling place of your name.
⁸They said to themselves, "We will utterly subdue them";
they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

⁹We do not see our signs;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is none among us who knows how long.
¹⁰How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name for ever?
¹¹Why do you hold back your hand,
why do you keep your right hand in your bosom?

¹²Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
¹³You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the dragons on the waters.
¹⁴You crushed the heads of Leviathan,
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
¹⁵You clove open springs and brooks;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
¹⁶Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the luminaries and the sun.
¹⁷You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.

¹⁸Remember this, O Yahweh, how the enemy scoffs,
and an impious people reviles your name.
¹⁹Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts;
do not forget the life of your poor for ever.

²⁰Have regard for your covenant;
for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
²¹Let not the downtrodden be put to shame;
let the poor and needy praise your name.

²²Arise, O God, plead your cause;
remember how the impious scoff at you all the day!
²³Do not forget the clamour of your foes,
the uproar of your adversaries which goes up continually!