A Lament After a Defeat and a Prayer for Restoration1
(For the music director, according to Shushan Eduth. A miktam of David. To teach. When he fought Mesopotamia and Aram Zobah, and Joab returned and struck Edom in the Valley of Salt, twelve thousand persons. ) O God, you have rejected us. You have broken us. You have been angry. Restore us!
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You have made the land quake. You have split it open. Heal its fissures, because it totters.
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You have shown your people hard things; You have given us wine that staggers.
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You have rallied those who fear you round a banner out of bowshot,Selah
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so that your beloved ones may be rescued. Save by your right hand and answer us.
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God has spoken in his holiness, “I will rejoice; I will divide up Shechem, and portion out the valley of Succoth.
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Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine, and Ephraim is the helmet for my head; Judah is my scepter.
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Moab is my washing pot; over Edom, I will cast my sandal. On account of me, O Philistia, raise a shout.”
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Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
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Have not you yourself rejected us, O God, and not gone out with our armies, O God?
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Give us help against the adversary, for the help of humankind is futile.
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Through God we will do valiantly, and it is he who will tread down our enemies.