1
I cried to the Lord when I was in distress,
To God when sinners assailed.
Suddenly the alarm of war was heard before me;
I said, He will hearken to me for I am full of righteousness.
I thought in my heart that I was full of righteousness,
Because I was well off and had become rich in children.
Their wealth spread to the whole earth,
And their glory to the end of the earth.
They were exalted to the stars;
They said they would never fall.
But they became insolent in their prosperity,
And they were without understanding,
Their sins were in secret,
And even I had no knowledge of them.
Their transgressions went beyond those of the heathen before them;
They utterly polluted the holy things of the Lord.
2
When the sinner waxed proud, with a battering-ram he cast down fortified walls, And you did not restrain him.
Alien nations ascended Your altar,
They trampled it proudly with their sandals;
Because the sons of Jerusalem had defiled the holy things of the Lord,
Had profaned with iniquities the offerings of God.
Therefore He said: Cast them far from Me;
It was set at nothing before God,
It was utterly dishonored;
The sons and the daughters were in grievous captivity,
Sealed was their neck, branded was it among the nations.
According to their sins has He done to them,
For He has left them in the hands of those who prevailed.
He has turned away His face from pitying them,
Young and old and their children together;
For they had done evil one and all, in not hearkening.
And the heavens were angry,
And the earth abhorred them;
For no man upon it had done what they did,
And the earth recognized all
Your righteous judgments, O God.
They set the sons of Jerusalem to be mocked at in return for the harlots in her;
Every wayfarer entered in in the full light of day.
They made mock with their transgressions, as they themselves were wont to do;
In the full light of day they revealed their iniquities.
And the daughters of Jerusalem were defiled in accordance with Your judgment,
Because they had defiled themselves with unnatural intercourse.
I am pained in my bowels and my inward parts for these things.
And yet I will justify You, O God, in uprightness of heart,
For in Your judgments is Your righteousness displayed, O God.
For You have rendered to the sinners according to their deeds,
Yes, according to their sins, which were very wicked.
You have uncovered their sins, that Your judgment might be manifest;
You have wiped out their memorial from the earth.
God is a righteous judge,
And he is no respecter of persons.
For the nations reproached Jerusalem, trampling it down;
Her beauty was dragged down from the throne of glory.
She girded on sackcloth instead of comely clothing,
A rope was about her head instead of a crown.
She put off the glorious diadem which God had set upon her,
In dishonor was her beauty cast upon the ground.
And I saw and begged the Lord and said,
Long enough, O Lord has Your hand been heavy on Israel, in bringing the nations upon
them.
For they have made sport unsparingly in wrath and fierce anger;
And they will make an utter end, unless You, O Lord, rebuke them in Your wrath.
For they have done. it not in zeal, but in lust of soul,
Pouring out their wrath upon us with a view to rapine.
Delay not, O God, to recompense them on their heads,
To turn the pride of the dragon into dishonor. And I had not long to wait before God showed me the insolent one
Slain on the mountains of Egypt,
Esteemed of less account than the least, on land and sea;
His body, too, borne here and there on the billows with much insolence,
With none to bury him, because He had rejected him with dishonor.
He reflected not that he was man,
And reflected not on the latter end;
He said: I will be lord of land and sea;
And he recognized not that it is God who is great,
Mighty in His great strength.
He is king over the heavens,
And judges kings and kingdoms.
It is He who sets me up in glory,
And brings down the proud to eternal destruction in dishonor,
Because they knew Him not.
And now behold, you princes of the earth, the judgment of the Lord,
For a great king and righteous is He, judging all that is under heaven.
Bless God, you that fear the Lord with wisdom,
For the mercy of the Lord will ###126####e upon those who fear Him, m the Judgment;
So that He will distinguish between the righteous and the sinner,
And recompense the sinners for ever according to their deeds;
And have mercy on the righteous, delivering him from the affliction of the sinner,
And recompensing the sinner for what he bath done to the righteous.
For the Lord is good to those who call upon Him in patience,
Doing according to His mercy to His pious ones,
Establishing them at all times before Him in strength.
Blessed be the Lord for ever before His servants.
3
Why sleep you, O my soul,
And bless not the Lord?
Sing a new song,
To God who is worthy to be praised.
Sing and be wakeful against His awaking,
For good is a psalm sung to God from a glad heart.
The righteous remember the Lord at all times,
With thanksgiving and declaration of the righteousness of the Lord's judgments.
The righteous despises not the chastening of the Lord;
His will is always before the Lord.
The righteous stumbles and holds the Lord righteous:
He falls and looks out for what God will do to him;
He seeks out from where his deliverance will come.
The steadfastness of the righteous is from God, their deliverer;
There lodges not in the house of the righteous sin upon sin.
The righteous continually searches his house,
To remove utterly all iniquity done by him in error.
He makes atonement for sins of ignorance by fasting and afflicting his soul,
And the Lord counts guiltless every pious man and his house. The sinner stumbles and curses his life
The day when he was begotten, and his mother's travail.
He adds sins to sins, while he lives;
He falls--truly grievous is his fall--and rises no more.
The destruction of the sinner is for ever,
And he shall not be remembered, when the righteous is visited.
This is the portion of sinners for ever.
But those who fear the Lord shall rise to life eternal,
And their life shall be in the light of the Lord, and shall come to an end no more.
4
Wherefore sit you, O profane man, in the council of the pious,
Seeing that your heart is far removed from the Lord,
Provoking with transgressions the God of Israel?
Extravagant in speech, extravagant in outward seeming beyond all men,
Is he who is severe of speech in condemning sinners in judgment.
And his hand is first upon him as though he acted in zeal,
And yet he is himself guilty in respect of manifold sins and of wantonness.
His eyes are upon every woman without distinction;
His tongue lies when he makes contract with an oath.
By night and in secret he sins as though unseen,
With his eyes he talks to every woman of evil compacts.
He is swift to enter every house with cheerfulness as though guileless.
Let God remove those who live in hypocrisy in the company of the pious,
Even the life of such an one with corruption of his flesh and penury.
Let God reveal the deeds of the men-pleasers,
The deeds of such an one with laughter and derision;
That the pious may count righteous the judgment of their God,
When sinners are removed from before the righteous,
Even the man-pleaser who utters law guilefully.
And their eyes are fixed upon any man's house that is still secure,
That they may, like the Serpent, destroy the wisdom of . . . with words of transgressors,
His words are deceitful that he may accomplish his wicked desire.
He never ceases from scattering families as though they were orphans,
Yes, he lays waste a house on account of his lawless desire.
He deceives with words, saying, There is none that sees, or judges.
He fills one house with lawlessness,
And then his eyes are fixed upon the next house,
To destroy it with words that give wing to desire.
Yet with all these his soul like Sheol, is not sated.
Let his portion, O Lord, be dishonored before you;
Let him go forth groaning, and come home cursed.
Let his life be spent in anguish, and penury, and want, O Lord; Let his sleep be beset with pains and his awaking with perplexities.
Let sleep be withdrawn from his eyelids at night;
Let him fail dishonorably in every work of his hands.
Let him come home empty-handed to his house,
And his house be void of everything with which he could sate his appetite.
Let his old age be spent in childless loneliness until his removal by death.
Let the flesh of the men-pleasers be rent by wild beasts,
And let the bones of the lawless lie dishonored in the sight of the sun.
Let ravens peck out the eyes of the hypocrites.
For they have laid waste many houses of men, in dishonor,
And scattered them in their lust;
And they have not remembered God,
Nor feared God in all these things;
But they have provoked God's anger and vexed Him.
May He remove them from off the earth,
Because with deceit they beguiled the souls of the flawless.
Blessed are those who fear the Lord in their flawlessness;
The Lord shall deliver them from guileful men and sinners,
And deliver us from every stumbling-block of the lawless (men).
Let God destroy those who insolently work all unrighteousness,
For a great and mighty judge is the Lord our God in righteousness.
Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon all those who love You.
5
O Lord God, I will praise Your name with joy,
In the midst of those who know Your righteous judgments.
For You are good and merciful, the refuge of the poor;
When I cry to You, do not silently disregard me.
For no man takes spoil from a mighty man;
Who, then, can take anything of a that You have made, except You Thyself give?
For man and his portion lie before You in the balance;
He cannot add to, so as to enlarge, what has been prescribed by You.
O God, when we are in distress we call upon You for help,
And You do not turn back our petition, for You are our God.
Cause not Your hand to be heavy upon us,
Lest through necessity we sin.
Even though You restore us not, we will not keep away;
But to You will we come.
For if I hunger, to You will I cry, O God;
And You will give to me.
Birds and fish do You nourish,
In that You give rain to the steppes that green grass may spring up,
So to prepare fodder in the steppe for every living thing;
And if they hunger, to You do they lift up their face.
Kings and rulers and peoples You do nourish, O God;
And who is the help of the poor and needy, if not You, O Lord? And You will hearken--for who is good and gentle but you?--
Making glad the soul of the humble by opening Your hand in mercy.
Man's goodness is bestowed grudgingly and ...;
And if he repeat it without murmuring, even that is marvelous.
But Your gift is great in goodness and wealth,
And he whose hope is set on You shall have no lack of gifts.
Upon the whole earth is Your mercy, O Lord, in goodness.
Happy is he whom God remembers in granting to him a due sufficiency;
If aman abound overmuch, he sins.
Sufficient are moderate means with righteousness,
And hereby the blessing of the Lord becomes abundance with righteousness.
Those who fear the Lord rejoice in good gifts,
And your goodness is upon Israel in Your kingdom.
Blessed is the glory of the Lord, for He is our king.
6
Happy is the man whose heart is fixed to call upon the name of the Lord;
When he remembers the name of the Lord, he will be saved.
His ways are made even by the Lord,
And the works of his hands are preserved by the Lord his God.
At what he sees in his bad dreams, his soul shall not be troubled;
When he passes through rivers and the tossing of the seas, he shall not be dismayed.
He arises from his sleep, and blesses the name of the Lord:
When his heart is at peace, he sings to the name of his God,
And he entreats the Lord for all his house.
And the Lord hears the prayer of every one that fears God,
And every request of the soul that hopes for Him does the Lord accomplish.
Blessed is the Lord, who shows mercy to those who love Him in sincerity.
7
Make not Your dwelling afar from us, O God;
Lest they assail us that hate us without cause.
For You have rejected them, O God;
Let not their foot trample upon Your holy inheritance.
Chasten us Thyself in Your good pleasure;
But give us not up to the nations;
For, if You send pestilence,
You Thyself give it charge concerning us;
For You are merciful,
And will not be angry to the point of consuming us.
While Your name dwells in our midst, we shall find mercy;
And the nations shall not prevail against us.
For You are our shield,
And when we call upon You, You hearken to us;
For You will pity the seed of Israel for ever
And You will not reject them: But we shall, be under Your yoke for ever,
And under the rod of Your chastening.
You will establish us in the time that You help us,
Showing mercy to the house of Jacob on the day in which You did promise to help them.
8
Distress and the sound of war has my ear heard,
The sound of a trumpet announcing slaughter and calamity,
The sound of much people as of an exceeding high wind,
As a tempest with mighty fire sweeping through the Negeb.
And I said in my heart, Surely God judges us;
A sound I hear moving towards Jerusalem, the holy city
My loins were broken at what I heard, my knees tottered;
My heart was afraid, my bones were dismayed like flax.
I said: They establish their ways in righteousness.
I thought upon the judgments of God since the creation of heaven and earth;
I held God righteous in His judgments which have been from of old.
God bare their sins in the full light of day;
All the earth came to know the righteous judgments of God.
In secret places underground their iniquities were committed to provoke Him to anger;
They wrought confusion, son with mother and father with daughter;
They committed adultery, every man with his neighhour's wife.
They concluded covenants with one another with an oath touching these things;
They plundered the sanctuary of God, as though there was no avenger.
They trod the altar of the Lord, coming straight from all manner of uncleanness;
And with menstrual blood they defiled the sacrifices, as though these were common flesh.
They left no sin undone, in which they surpassed not the heathen.
Therefore God mingled for them a spirit of wandering;
And gave them to drink a cup of undiluted wine, that they might become drunken.
He brought him who is from the end of the earth, that smites mightily;
He decreed war against Jerusalem, and against her land.
The princes of the land went to meet him with joy: they said to him:
Blessed be your way! Come you, enter you in with peace.
They made the rough ways even, before his entering in;
They opened the gates to Jerusalem, they crowned its walls.
As a father enters the house of his sons, so he entered Jerusalem in peace;
He established his feet there in great safety.
He captured her fortresses and the wall of Jerusalem;
For God Himself led him in safety, while they wandered.
He destroyed their princes and every one wise in counsel;
He poured out the blood of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, like the water of uncleanness. He led away their sons and daughters, whom they had begotten in defilement.
They did according to their uncleanness, even as their fathers had done:
They defiled Jerusalem and the things that had been hallowed to the name of God.
But God has shown Himself righteous in His judgments upon the nations of the earth;
And the pious servants of God are like innocent lambs in their midst.
Worthy to be praised is the Lord that judges the whole earth in His righteousness.
Behold, now, O God, You have shown us Your judgment in Your righteousness;
Our eyes have seen Your judgments, O God.
We have justified Your name that is honored for ever;
For You are the God of righteousness, judging Israel with chastening.
Turn, O God, Your mercy upon us, and have pity upon us;
Gather together the dispersed of Israel, with mercy and goodness;
For Your faithfulness is with us,
And though we have stiffened our neck, yet You are our chastener;
Overlook us not, O our God, lest the nations swallow us up, as though there were none to
deliver.
But You are our God from the beginning,
And upon You is our hope set, O Lord;
And we will not depart from You,
For good are Your judgments upon us.
Ours and our children's be Your good pleasure for ever;
O Lord, our Savior, we shall never more be moved.
The Lord is worthy to be praised for His judgments with the mouth of His pious ones;
And blessed be Israel of the Lord for ever.
9
When Israel was led away captive into a strange land,
When they fell away from the Lord who redeemed them,
They were cast away from the inheritance, which the Lord had given them.
Among every nation were the dispersed of Israel according to the word of God,
That You might be justified, O God, in Your righteousness by reason of our
transgressions:
For You are a just judge over all the peoples of the earth.
For from Your knowledge none that does unjustly is hidden,
And the righteous deeds of Your pious ones are before You, O Lord;
Where, then, can a man hide himself from Your knowledge, O God?
Our works are subject to our own choice and power
To do right or wrong in the works of our hands;
And in Your righteousness You visit the sons of men.
He who does righteousness lays up life for himself with the Lord;
And he who does wrongly forfeits his life to destruction; For the judgments of the Lord are given in righteousness to every man and his house.
To whom are You good, O God, except to those who call upon the Lord?
He cleanses from sins a soul when it makes confession, when it makes
acknowledgement;
For shame is upon us and u on our faces on account of all these things.
And to whom does He forgive sins, except to those who have sinned?
You bless the righteous, and do not reprove them for the sins that they have
committed;
And Your goodness is upon those who sin, when they repent.
And, now, You are our God, and we the people whom You have loved:
Behold and show pity, O God of Israel, for we are Your;
And remove not Your mercy from us, lest they assail us.
For You chose the seed of Abraham before all the nations,
And did set Your name upon us, O Lord,
And You will not reject us for ever.
You made a covenant with our fathers concerning us;
And we hope in You, when our soul turns to You.
The mercy of the Lord be upon the house of Israel for ever and ever.
10
Happy is the man whom the Lord remembers with reproving,
And whom He restrains from the way of evil with strokes
That he may be cleansed from sin, that it may not be multiplied.
He who makes ready his back for strokes shall be cleansed,
For the Lord is good to those who endure chastening.
For He makes straight the ways of the righteous,
And does not pervert them by His chastening.
And the mercy of the Lord is upon those who love Him in truth,
And the Lord remembers His servants in mercy.
For the testimony is in the law of the eternal covenant,
The testimony of the Lord is on the ways of men in His visitation.
Just and kind is our Lord in His judgments for ever,
And Israel shall praise the name of the Lord in gladness.
And the pious shall give thanks in the assembly of the people;
And on the poor shall God have mercy in the gladness of Israel;
For good and merciful is God for ever,
And the assemblies of Israel shall glorify the name of the Lord.
The salvation of the Lord be upon the house of Israel to everlasting gladness!
11
Blow you in Zion on the trumpet to summon the saints,
Cause you to be heard in Jerusalem the voice of him who brings good tidings; For God has had pity on Israel in visiting them.
Stand on the height, O Jerusalem, and behold your children,
From the East and the West, gathered together by the Lord;
From the North they come in the gladness of their God,
From the isles afar off God has gathered them.
High mountains has He abased into a plain for them;
The hills fled at their entrance.
The woods gave them shelter as they passed by;
Every sweet-smelling tree God caused to spring up for them,
That Israel might pass by in the visitation of the glory of their God.
Put on, O Jerusalem, your glorious garments;
Make ready your holy robe;
For God has spoken good concerning Israel, for ever and ever.
Let the Lord do what He has spoken concerning Israel and Jerusalem;
Let the Lord raise up Israel by His glorious name.
The mercy of the Lord be upon Israel for ever and ever.
12
O Lord, deliver my soul from the lawless and wicked man,
From the tongue that is lawless and slanderous, and speaks lies and deceit.
Manifoldly twisted are the words of the tongue of the wicked man,
Even as among a people a fire that burns up their beauty.
So he delights to fill houses with a lying tongue,
To cut down the trees of gladness which sets on fire transgressors,
To involve households in warfare by means of slanderous lips.
May God remove far from the innocent the lips of transgressors by bringing them to want
And may the bones of slanderers be scattered far away from those who fear the Lord!
In flaming fire perish the slanderous tongue far away from the pious!
May the Lord preserve the quiet soul that hates the unrighteous;
And may the Lord establish the man that follows peace at home.
The salvation of the Lord be upon Israel His servant for ever;
And let the sinners perish together at the presence of the Lord;
But let the Lord's pious ones inherit the promises of the Lord.
13
The right hand of the Lord has covered me;
The right hand of the Lord has spared us.
The arm of the Lord has saved us from the sword that passed through,
From famine and the death of sinners.
Noisome beasts ran upon them:
With their teeth they tore their flesh,
And with their molars crushed their bones.
But from all these things the Lord delivered us. The righteous was troubled on account of his errors,
Lest he should be taken away along with the sinners;
For terrible is the overthrow of the sinner;
But not one of all these things touches the righteous.
For not alike are the chastening of the righteous for sins done in ignorance,
And the overthrow of the sinners.
Secretly is the righteous chastened,
Lest the sinner rejoice over the righteous.
For He corrects the righteous as a beloved son.
And his chastisement is as that of a first-born.
For the Lord spares His pious ones,
And blots out their errors by His chastening.
For the life of the righteous shall be for ever;
But sinners shall be taken away into destruction,,
And their memorial shall be found no more.
But upon the pious is the mercy of the Lord,
And upon those who fear Him His mercy.
14
Faithful is the Lord to those who love Him in truth,
To those who endure His chastening,
To those who walk in the righteousness of His commandments,
In the law which He commanded us that we might live.
The pious of the Lord shall live by it for ever;
The Paradise of the Lord, the trees of life, are His pious ones.
Their planting is rooted for ever;
They shall not be plucked up all the days of heaven:
For the portion and the inheritance of God is Israel.
But not so are the sinners and transgressors,
Who love the brief day spent in companionship with their sin;
Their delight is in fleeting corruption,
And they remember not God.
For the ways of men are known before Him at all times,
And He knows the secrets of the heart before they come to pass.
Therefore their inheritance is Sheol and darkness and destruction
And they shall not be found in the day when the righteous obtain mercy;
But the pious of the Lord shall inherit life in gladness.
15
When I was in distress I called upon the name of the Lord,
I hoped for the help of the God of Jacob and was saved;
For the hope and refuge of the poor are You, O God.
For who, O God, is strong except to give thanks to You in truth?
And in which is a man powerful except in giving thanks to Your name?
A new psalm with song in gladness of heart,
The fruit of the lips with the well-tuned instrument of the tongue,
The first fruits of the lips from a pious and righteous heart-- He who offers these things shall never be shaken by evil;
The flame of fire and the wrath against the unrighteous shall not touch him,
When it goes forth from the face of the Lord against sinners,
To destroy all the substance of sinners,
For the mark of God is upon the righteous that they may be saved.
Famine and sword and pestilence shall be far from the righteous,
For they shall flee away from the pious as men pursued in war;
But they shall pursue sinners and overtake them,
And those who do lawlessness shall not escape the judgment of God;
As by enemies experienced in war shall they be overtaken,
For the mark of destruction is upon their forehead.
And the inheritance of sinners is destruction and darkness,
And their iniquities shall pursue them to Sheol beneath.
Their inheritance shall not be found of their children,
For sins shall lay waste the houses of sinners.
And sinners shall perish for ever in the day of the Lord's judgment,
When God visits the earth with His judgment.
But those who fear the Lord shall find mercy in it,
And shall live by the compassion of their God;
But sinners shall perish for ever.
16
When my soul slumbered being afar from the Lord, I had all but slipped down to the pit,
When I was far from God, my soul had been well-near poured out to death,
I had been near to the gates of Sheol with the sinner,
When my soul departed from the Lord God of Israel--
Had not the Lord helped me with His everlasting mercy.
He pricked me, as a horse is pricked, that I might serve Him,
My savior and helper at all times saved me.
I will give thanks to You, O God, for You have helped me to my salvation;
And have not counted me with sinners to my destruction.
Remove not Your mercy from me, O God,
Nor Your memorial from my heart until I die.
Rule me, O God, keeping me back from wicked sin,
And from every wicked woman that causes the simple to stumble.
And let not the beauty of a lawless woman beguile me,
Nor any one that is subject to unprofitable sin.
Establish the works of my hands before You,
And preserve my goings in the remembrance of You.
Protect my tongue and my lips with words of truth;
Anger and unreasoning wrath put far from me.
Murmuring, and impatience in affliction, remove far from me
When, if I sin, You chasten me that I may return to You.
But with goodwill and cheerfulness support my soul;
When You strengthen my soul, what is given to me will be sufficient for me.
For if You give not strength,
Who can endure chastisement with poverty? When a man is rebuked by means of his corruption,
Your testing of him is in his flesh and in the affliction of poverty.
If the righteous endures in all these trials, he shall receive mercy from the Lord.
17
O Lord, You are our King for ever and ever,
For in You, O God, does our soul glory.
How long are the days of man's life upon the earth?
As are his days, so is the hope set upon him.
But we hope in God, our deliverer;
For the might of our God is for ever with mercy,
And the kingdom of our God is for ever over the nations in judgment.
You, O Lord, chose David to be king over Israel,
And swore to him touching his seed that never should his kingdom fail before You.
But, for our sins, sinners rose up against us;
They assailed us and thrust us out;
What You had not promised to them, they took away from us with violence.
They in no way glorified Your honorable name;
They set a worldly monarchy in place of that which was their excellency;
They laid waste the throne of David in tumultuous arrogance.
But You, O God, did cast them down, and remove their seed from the earth,
In that there rose up against them a man that was alien to our race.
According to their sins did You recompense them, O God;
So that it befell them according to their deeds.
God showed them no pity;
He sought out their seed and let not one of them go free.
Faithful is the Lord in all His judgments
Which He does upon the earth.
The lawless one laid waste our land so that none inhabited it,
They destroyed young and old and their children together.
In the heat of His anger He sent them away even to the west,
And He exposed the rulers of the land unsparingly to derision.
Being an alien the enemy acted proudly,
And his heart was alien from Our God.
And all things whatsoever he did in Jerusalem,
As also the nations in the cities to their gods.
And the children of the covenant in the midst of the mingled peoples surpassed them in evil.
There was not among them one that wrought in the midst of Jerusalem mercy and truth.
Those who loved the synagogues of the pious fled from them,
As sparrows that fly from their nest.
They wandered in deserts that their lives might be saved from harm, And precious in the eyes of those who lived abroad was any that escaped alive from them.
Over the whole earth were they scattered by lawless men.
For the heavens withheld the rain from dropping upon the earth,
Springs were stopped that sprang perennially out of the deeps, that ran down from lofty
mountains.
For there was none among those who wrought righteousness and justice;
From the chief of them to the least of them all were sinful;
The king was a transgressor, and the judge disobedient, and the people sinful.
Behold, O Lord, and raise up to them their king, the son of David,
At the time in the which You see, O God, that he may reign over Israel Your servant.
And gird him with strength, that he may shatter unrighteous rulers,
And that he may purge Jerusalem from nations that trample her down to destruction.
Wisely, righteously he shall thrust out sinners from the inheritance,
He shall destroy the pride of the sinner as a potter's vessel.
With a rod of iron he shall break in pieces all their substance,
He shall destroy the godless nations with the word of his mouth;
At his rebuke nations shall flee before him,
And he shall reprove sinners for the thoughts of their heart.
And he shall gather together a holy people, whom he shall lead in righteousness,
And he shall judge the tribes of the people that has been sanctified by the Lord his God.
And he shall not suffer unrighteousness to lodge any more in their midst,
Nor shall there dwell with them any man that knows wickedness,
For he shall know them, that they are all sons of their God.
And he shall divide them according to their tribes upon the land,
And neither sojourner nor alien shall sojourn with them any more.
He shall judge peoples and nations in the wisdom of his righteousness. Selah.
And he shall have the heathen nations to serve him under his yoke;
And he shall glorify the Lord in a place to be seen of all the earth;
And he shall purge Jerusalem, making it holy as of old:
So that nations shall come from the ends of the earth to see his glory,
Bringing as gifts her sons who had fainted.
And to see the glory of the Lord, with which God has glorified her.
And he shall be a righteous king, taught of God, over them,
And there shall be no unrighteousness in his days in their midst,
For all shall be holy and their king the anointed of the Lord.
For he shall not put his trust in horse and rider and bow,
Nor shall he multiply for himself gold and silver for war,
Nor shall he gather confidence from a multitude for the day of battle. The Lord Himself is his king, the hope of him who is mighty through his hope in God.
All nations shall be in fear before him,
For he will smite the earth with the word of his mouth for ever.
He will bless the people of the Lord with wisdom and gladness,
And he himself will be pure from sin, so that he may rule a great people.
He will rebuke rulers, and remove sinners by the might of his word;
And relying upon his God, throughout his days he will not stumble;
For God will make him mighty by means of His holy spirit,
And wise by means of the spirit of understanding, with strength and righteousness.
And the blessing of the Lord will be with him: he will be strong and stumble not;
His hope will be in the Lord: who then can prevail against him?
He will, be mighty in his works, and strong in the fear of God,
He will be shepherding the flock of the Lord faithfully and righteously,
And will suffer none among them to stumble in their pasture.
He will lead them all aright,
And there will be no pride among those who any among them should be oppressed.
This will be the majesty of the king of Israel whom God knows;
He will raise him up over the house of Israel to correct him.
His words shall be more refined than costly gold, the choicest;
In the assemblies he will judge the peoples, the tribes of the sanctified.
His words shall be like the words of the holy ones in the midst of sanctified peoples.
Blessed be those who shall be in those days,
In that they shall see the good fortune of Israel which God shall bring to pass in the
gathering together of the tribes.
May the Lord hasten His mercy upon Israel!
May He deliver us from the uncleanness of unholy enemies!
The Lord Himself is our king for ever and ever.
18
Lord, Your mercy is over the works of Your hands for ever;
Your goodness is over Israel with a rich gift.
Your eyes look upon them, so that none of them suffers want;
Your ears listen to the hopeful prayer of the poor.
Your judgments are executed upon the whole earth in mercy;
And Your love is toward the seed of Abraham, the children of Israel.
Your chastisement is upon us as upon a first-born, only-begotten son,
To turn back the obedient soul from folly that is wrought in ignorance.
May God cleanse Israel against the day of mercy and blessing,
Against the day of choice when
Blessed shall they be that shall be in those days,
He brings back His anointed. In that they shall see the goodness of the Lord which He shall perform for the generation that
is to come,
Under the rod of chastening of the Lord's anointed in the fear of his God,
In the spirit of wisdom and righteousness and strength;
That he may direct every man in the works of righteousness by the fear of God,
That he may establish them all before the Lord,
A good generation living in the fear of God in the days of mercy. Selah.
Great is our God and glorious, dwelling in the highest.
It is He who has established in their courses the lights of heaven for determining seasons
from year to year,
And they have not turned aside from the way which He appointed them.
In the fear of God they pursue their path every day,
From the day God created them and for evermore.
And they have erred not since the day He created them.
Since the generations of old they have not withdrawn from their path,
Unless God commanded them so to do by the command of His servants.